I don't think the intent is that we EVER directly fight the Iconians...
"Do not attract our attention again."
I think the implication is:
> If you do not attract our attention, we might just leave you alone in the future. You're no threat to us but if you get in our way again you'll suffer for it.
> We're done with this round, but we want you people to be too afraid of us to go another one. Good luck dealing with the Undine we sicced on you this time.
> Any conflict will be fought on our terms, not yours. We've got all kinds of servitors and catspaws to throw at you whenever we want. If you survive the Undine, we can arrange for another distraction.
As others have said, they're a useful story hook and one that the Devs need never write themselves out of being able to use.
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I'm really loving how more and more story driven this game is becoming, the last Featured Episodes was fantastic. We finally got to see an Iconians, Starfleet and the KDF finally do a cease fire, so I feel that a final epic battle against the Iconians will be coming in the next 2 or 3 seasons.
How in the universe can you fathom anyone going up against the Iconians?!? We wouldn't even stand a chance against even one of them in our current state. It would probably take several millennia before we got even close to their level. A "final battle" is completely and totally out of the question, unless they decide to step on our little anthill galaxy. D= D= D=
Well, let's be clear about something here: the Iconians are nowhere near as powerful as the Q. They're extremely powerful -- maybe "demigod" status -- but the Q are, for all intents and purposes, literal gods. The Iconians are, by my current estimation, about one tier up from the Dominion or the Borg. They're either about equivalent to the Tholians, or somewhat more powerful. (The Tholians have the whole interdimensional empire thing, so it's kind of hard to tell how powerful they really are.)
In any case, I think we'll end up defeating them, and driving them back into hiding, but certainly not actually destroying them. Basically, just a repeat of the original Operation Bombing Iconia To Death And Back.
I don't think the intent is that we EVER directly fight the Iconians...
People said this in WoW. But they eventually did get around to this some. The entirety of WoW lore is the meddlings of the Old Gods and the Titans, who map very closely to the Iconians and Preservers.
The Old Gods mess up the universe and have a pawn or someone who messed with their technology over here. The Titans, who created the universe, decide to reboot the universe or people squabble over Titan technology over there.
Vanilla WoW and each expansion since have had ONE of the Old Gods as an enemy (Burning Crusade had an unnamed one). They weren't typically the main or final enemy. Killing one only caused them to shed their body but didn't permanently kill them. Their connection to the main plot was often very tangential, involving indirect influence. In Mists of Pandaria, the Old God's heart was the source of trouble. Their servants were also scattered around causing trouble.
The Titans created the Old Gods and their offspring appear as watchers or demi-Titans while you see no actual Titans.
Much of the structure of WoW is parallel to what is seen in similar MMOs, including STO.
So my guess is that we might fight individual Iconians. Winning may not mean killing them permanently (much like our defeat of the Borg Queen didn't kill her permanently). We may see people possessed by them or using their tech. We may fight one or two and drive them back. (Ie. winning the boss fight causes them to leave, shed a body, etc. not kill them).
And the chaos they cause will probably be more of the focus.
Additionally, as we get deeper into this, I imagine the story will be less faction vs. faction and more players fighting campaigns against individuals, which slows down the plot but makes it more interesting. I expect more boss encounters to be named individuals with personal backstories. More Hakeev type enemies working as the face of the Iconian threat, less focus on the politics between factions.
And I expect it to get more personal than it did with Hakeev. Mad scientist trying to resurrect his daughter working with the Iconians. Colonial governor trying to cure his plagued people working with the Iconians. Part of how you manage this kind of story at this phase is to move beyond "allied forces have pushed back the enemy" (which makes plots move quickly) and towards "we're dealing with a madman with a highly specific and personal vendetta that ties into Iconian plans", which slows down the big story and focuses on making each moment more satisfying.
Maybe a series of STFs, for example, with one boss, who escapes death in all of them except the last one. Or who gets captured alive to create more trouble later, like Taris. So the kind of named enemy we fight 5+ times and don't ever actually kill, whose plot adds an entirely personal dimension to the Iconian story.
not forgetting sisco and his final solution for a colony of people the federal motherland found unseemly. kinda scary how people missed that and cheered sisco and the federation for doing that.
Well, seeing as how no one actually died, it wasn't particularly "final"....
one iconians killed 7 kdf with a glance.
How about you go first?
So? Any of the factions in that room could have put on the same display. The fact is if the Iconians are as awesomely powerful as they would have everyone fear they have already missed their chance to attack while the galaxy was most divided, so why didn't they? Could it be that although the Iconians may be technologically advanced they are actually very few in numbers and have to rely on others to do their fighting for them?
This may not be the direction the writers of STO plan to take with the Iconians but the story is leading that way and if eventually we do face a massive Iconian invasion directly it will come as a surprising reversal of how they have been portrayed so far.
That said, like others I would consider the Iconians the ultimate enemy for this game and a final confrontation would probably be the game's swan song. That's a long ways off yet considering how many completely unrelated enemies and races who shouldn't be enemies are getting thrown into the blender to make something for us to shoot at.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
After we finally defeat the Iconians, the true masterminds will reveal themselves, Tribbles. Tribbles control key members of the Federation through mind control and the only ones that can resist Tribble Mind Control are the Klingons which is why the Klingons destroyed their home planet. The universe was safe from the Tribble menace until some moron from Deep Space 9 brought a Tribble back to the 24th Century because it was cute.
The borg seem too persistent to dissuade, and I doubt starfleet would ever fully eradicate them just because of their principles. We'll probably be holding the line against them until we find a way to quarantine them permanently or heal them.
The undine will probably be deterred and reasoned with eventually. Either that, or wiped out by the borg. It depends on how adament they are on this whole food-chain-in-space thing, and how much they still will be in 10 months when we've been destroying armadas of their ships on a daily basis in the name of rep grind...
We'll likely work in the dominion as an uneasy USA/USSR WW2 alliance deal against the iconians. After that, back to this cold war thing we have going, but not really a MMO driving plotline mechanism by any means.
We've still got to mop up the true way and tal shiar, but they're living on borrowed time while we have bigger fish to fry right now.
The voth are arrogant and backed into a corner by the borg, most expedient way to wrap that up would be to have the borg deal the killing blow after the Undine offensive weakened them.
The tholians and elachi are both persistant, powerful, and mysterious menaces that need more expansion upon. These would be two good potential future boogeymen, though I guess the elachi would go down fighting with the Iconians, maybe?
The augments are out there, plotting.
The breen are a peripheral nuisance who prey on our allies in the orelllius block, but hardly a war-level threat.
I dunno. Someday, when all this fighting is over, maybe we can get back to exploring.... :rolleyes:
The borg seem too persistent to dissuade, and I doubt starfleet would ever fully eradicate them just because of their principles. We'll probably be holding the line against them until we find a way to quarantine them permanently or heal them.
The undine will probably be deterred and reasoned with eventually. Either that, or wiped out by the borg. It depends on how adament they are on this whole food-chain-in-space thing, and how much they still will be in 10 months when we've been destroying armadas of their ships on a daily basis in the name of rep grind...
We'll likely work in the dominion as an uneasy USA/USSR WW2 alliance deal against the iconians. After that, back to this cold war thing we have going, but not really a MMO driving plotline mechanism by any means.
We've still got to mop up the true way and tal shiar, but they're living on borrowed time while we have bigger fish to fry right now.
The voth are arrogant and backed into a corner by the borg, most expedient way to wrap that up would be to have the borg deal the killing blow after the Undine offensive weakened them.
The tholians and elachi are both persistant, powerful, and mysterious menaces that need more expansion upon. These would be two good potential future boogeymen, though I guess the elachi would go down fighting with the Iconians, maybe?
The augments are out there, plotting.
The breen are a peripheral nuisance who prey on our allies in the orelllius block, but hardly a war-level threat.
I dunno. Someday, when all this fighting is over, maybe we can get back to exploring.... :rolleyes:
Your assessments seem a bit random to me.
What exactly makes the Breen a lesser threat then, say, the Tholians or the Elachi?
I think the Undine, Borg and Voth are still at the top of the food chain, below only the Iconians (among material factions).
The Dominion is a tier below, but should still be higher up then the Feds, Romulans and Klinks. Tholians, Breen, Elachi... they appeared little in the series, so we don't know much about their potential.
The Breen at least fought in the Dominion War and almost turned it around for the Founders.
Your assessments seem a bit random to me.
What exactly makes the Breen a lesser threat then, say, the Tholians or the Elachi?
I think the Undine, Borg and Voth are still a the top of the food chain, below only the Iconians (among material factions).
The Dominion is a tier below, but should still be higher up then the Feds, Romulans and Klinks. Tholians, Breen, Elachi... they appeared little in the series, so we don't know much about their potential.
The Breen at least fought in the Dominion War and almost turned it around for the Founders.
Trouble is we don't know how they would compare to the Undine, Borg, and Voth since they're in their own little slice of another side of the galaxy...all we know is the Iconians don't recommend confrontation with them untill the Alpha/Beta Quadrant powers are conquered.
Look what it took to beat them in DS9, it not only took the major powers of the Alpha/Beta uniting, it also took one of their allies turning on them in the middle of a crucial battle...if the Carassians hadn't switched sides in the end the majority of the galaxy could very well be in Dominion control.
Technically I imagine by some way or another we could see another Dominion war, I mean with all of the manipulation of races by the Iconians who knows...maybe they might try and nudge the Dominion into attacking the Alpha Quadrant again.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Your assessments seem a bit random to me.
What exactly makes the Breen a lesser threat then, say, the Tholians or the Elachi?
I think the Undine, Borg and Voth are still at the top of the food chain, below only the Iconians (among material factions).
The Dominion is a tier below, but should still be higher up then the Feds, Romulans and Klinks. Tholians, Breen, Elachi... they appeared little in the series, so we don't know much about their potential.
The Breen at least fought in the Dominion War and almost turned it around for the Founders.
So the Breen are more or less non-aggressive at the current game state. They're pretty much pirate raiders from a rogue state. They're raiding the deferi and taking slaves, and tearing through their space looking for perserver artifacts, but there's never any indication that any of these are coordinated, mobilized military actions or that these attacks are backed by the actual confederacy. They could be, and at times do seem very much like, individual, cellular war bands. Orellius sector is more like sub-saharan africa mid 1990's than the western front, right now. The breen were a deciding factor in the Dominion war because of their timely arrival. They re-balanced the scales for the dwindling dominion expeditionary force and the overworked, outmatched cardassian fleet. It was practically a timely last minute mercenary cavalry charge.
It's only a matter of time until the Undine realize they've been duped, and if this entire campaign is reactionary, then the sooner they stop allowing themselves to be manipulated, the better for them. They're more likely to fight the iconians with us than join them, and it's only a matter of time until we get on talking terms. You're telling me they wouldn't acknowledge and prioritize a larger threat like that given their darwinistic philosophy?
We've pretty much already trivialized the borg. We're liberating newly assimilated deferi daily. We have instantaneously remodulating weapons, adaptive shields, and countermeasure consumables are issued to front line troops, and regularly striking at the collective leadership in its hive complexes. We'll easily be able to hold the line against them out in Gamma Orionis until we either wall them off or cure them.
The Voth are a nomadic race restricted to their cityships. The borg pushed them to desperation that is researching omega particles. They were up against the wall, we were already probably going to be the straw that broke their back in that scenario. After that undine offensive that crippled them from the rear? Forget it, they're on the ropes. The borg that backed them into this corner on the delta quadrant side are still pressing that front on them, for the second time in history, dinosaurs are threatened with extinction.
The dominion is a much larger individual power than either of the alpha quadrant powers. Their war machine is pretty much that of an entire subjugated quadrant, so yeah. They also haven't been in a consuming multiple-fronts war for the past 2 years. The only reason they got pushed back in the dominion war was because the wormhole bottlenecked them, overwise they would've overrun us the first time.
Edit: meanwhile, the tholians and elachi are both largely enigmatic to the AQ powers' intel services, both have deep strike capability and are able to pop up more or less anywhere they want in space, both are native to hostile environments that would be difficult to mount an offensive in, and both are using advanced tech that the AQ powers don't have.
So the Breen are more or less non-aggressive at the current game state. They're pretty much pirate raiders from a rogue state. They're raiding the deferi and taking slaves, and tearing through their space looking for perserver artifacts, but there's never any indication that any of these are coordinated, mobilized military actions or that these attacks are backed by the actual confederacy. They could be, and at times do seem very much like, individual, cellular war bands. Orellius sector is more like sub-saharan africa mid 1990's than the western front, right now. The breen were a deciding factor in the Dominion war because of their timely arrival. They re-balanced the scales for the dwindling dominion expeditionary force and the overworked, outmatched cardassian fleet. It was practically a timely last minute mercenary cavalry charge.
It's only a matter of time until the Undine realize they've been duped, and if this entire campaign is reactionary, then the sooner they stop allowing themselves to be manipulated, the better for them. They're more likely to fight the iconians with us than join them, and it's only a matter of time until we get on talking terms. You're telling me they wouldn't acknowledge and prioritize a larger threat like that given their darwinistic philosophy?
We've pretty much already trivialized the borg. We're liberating newly assimilated deferi daily. We have instantaneously remodulating weapons, adaptive shields, and countermeasure consumables are issued to front line troops, and regularly striking at the collective leadership in its hive complexes. We'll easily be able to hold the line against them out in Gamma Orionis until we either wall them off or cure them.
The Voth are a nomadic race restricted to their cityships. The borg pushed them to desperation that is researching omega particles. They were up against the wall, we were already probably going to be the straw that broke their back in that scenario. After that undine offensive that crippled them from the rear? Forget it, they're on the ropes. The borg that backed them into this corner on the delta quadrant side are still pressing that front on them, for the second time in history, dinosaurs are threatened with extinction.
The dominion is a much larger individual power than either of the alpha quadrant powers. Their war machine is pretty much that of an entire subjugated quadrant, so yeah. They also haven't been in a consuming multiple-fronts war for the past 2 years. The only reason they got pushed back in the dominion war was because the wormhole bottlenecked them, overwise they would've overrun us the first time.
Edit: meanwhile, the tholians and elachi are both largely enigmatic to the AQ powers' intel services, both have deep strike capability and are able to pop up more or less anywhere they want in space, both are native to hostile environments that would be difficult to mount an offensive in, and both are using advanced tech that the AQ powers don't have.
Now, those are some good arguments.
Even though I wouldn't dismiss the Borg that easily. And I wouldn't bet that Cryptic will make the Voth nomadic by nature (despite the "hints" in Voyager. On the other hand, it wouldn't make much sense for a 30 million year old culture to not have colonized planets).
Your point about the breen still strikes me a bit opinionated without much basis besides your personal impressions of the entire Orellius situation. Orellius could tell us nothing or everything about the Breen's intentions and capabilities.
Now, those are some good arguments.
Even though I wouldn't dismiss the Borg that easily. And I wouldn't bet that Cryptic will make the Voth nomadic by nature (despite the "hints" in Voyager. On the other hand, it wouldn't make much sense for a 30 million year old culture to not have colonized planets).
Your point about the breen still strikes me a bit opinionated without much basis besides your personal impressions of the entire Orellius situation. Orellius could tell us nothing or everything about the Breen's intentions and capabilities.
I would dismiss the Borg that easily. That fight is over. The Borg were (one of the) big threat(s) in the 24th century. Not anymore. And, well, they're not as superpowered as people think. The Dominion would blow them out of the water. The Tholians too, probably. And the Iconians? Don't make me laugh.
It's like I've said in another thread: it's the great irony of the Borg. They think they can adapt to everything, but it's that same nature -- their Collective -- that leaves them stagnant. They've beaten every other foe by massive overwhelming force, and they don't know what to do now that a faction withstood their attack and adapted.
After we finally defeat the Iconians, the true masterminds will reveal themselves, Tribbles. Tribbles control key members of the Federation through mind control and the only ones that can resist Tribble Mind Control are the Klingons which is why the Klingons destroyed their home planet. The universe was safe from the Tribble menace until some moron from Deep Space 9 brought a Tribble back to the 24th Century because it was cute.
I bet they still sing songs around the campfires about 'The Great Tribble Hunt' ...
The borg seem too persistent to dissuade, and I doubt starfleet would ever fully eradicate them just because of their principles. We'll probably be holding the line against them until we find a way to quarantine them permanently or heal them.
I know it's not really the topic, but Borgs are not sick. They have a different way to see the world than us, a way we find "evil", but it's very relative. To them, they make the world better. Closer to perfection.
Starfleet fight them because the Borg started the conflict. Otherwise, they would not fight them at all. Even if they assimilated entire non-starfleet worlds, because of the Prime Directive.
Even Janeway (probably lying, but still), when she liberated 7 of 9, told her she would have free will once she had tasted human life. If she wanted to go back as a Borg, she would be free to do so.
The liberated Borgs like Picard had this unspoken choice to. Obviously, they never want to become a Borg again, at least after a while.
They talked after the Delta quadrant is finished more or less they would start on the Gamma Quadrant, remember we let that shape shifter go ?
It wouldn't surprise if they would set that in motion, a newly told Dominion War with the Breen and who know they would take the Cardies in action by then to !!
We will see people !!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
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I think the implication is:
> If you do not attract our attention, we might just leave you alone in the future. You're no threat to us but if you get in our way again you'll suffer for it.
> We're done with this round, but we want you people to be too afraid of us to go another one. Good luck dealing with the Undine we sicced on you this time.
> Any conflict will be fought on our terms, not yours. We've got all kinds of servitors and catspaws to throw at you whenever we want. If you survive the Undine, we can arrange for another distraction.
As others have said, they're a useful story hook and one that the Devs need never write themselves out of being able to use.
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I dunno, maybe we'll have Q BOFFs by then...
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In any case, I think we'll end up defeating them, and driving them back into hiding, but certainly not actually destroying them. Basically, just a repeat of the original Operation Bombing Iconia To Death And Back.
People said this in WoW. But they eventually did get around to this some. The entirety of WoW lore is the meddlings of the Old Gods and the Titans, who map very closely to the Iconians and Preservers.
The Old Gods mess up the universe and have a pawn or someone who messed with their technology over here. The Titans, who created the universe, decide to reboot the universe or people squabble over Titan technology over there.
Vanilla WoW and each expansion since have had ONE of the Old Gods as an enemy (Burning Crusade had an unnamed one). They weren't typically the main or final enemy. Killing one only caused them to shed their body but didn't permanently kill them. Their connection to the main plot was often very tangential, involving indirect influence. In Mists of Pandaria, the Old God's heart was the source of trouble. Their servants were also scattered around causing trouble.
The Titans created the Old Gods and their offspring appear as watchers or demi-Titans while you see no actual Titans.
Much of the structure of WoW is parallel to what is seen in similar MMOs, including STO.
So my guess is that we might fight individual Iconians. Winning may not mean killing them permanently (much like our defeat of the Borg Queen didn't kill her permanently). We may see people possessed by them or using their tech. We may fight one or two and drive them back. (Ie. winning the boss fight causes them to leave, shed a body, etc. not kill them).
And the chaos they cause will probably be more of the focus.
Additionally, as we get deeper into this, I imagine the story will be less faction vs. faction and more players fighting campaigns against individuals, which slows down the plot but makes it more interesting. I expect more boss encounters to be named individuals with personal backstories. More Hakeev type enemies working as the face of the Iconian threat, less focus on the politics between factions.
And I expect it to get more personal than it did with Hakeev. Mad scientist trying to resurrect his daughter working with the Iconians. Colonial governor trying to cure his plagued people working with the Iconians. Part of how you manage this kind of story at this phase is to move beyond "allied forces have pushed back the enemy" (which makes plots move quickly) and towards "we're dealing with a madman with a highly specific and personal vendetta that ties into Iconian plans", which slows down the big story and focuses on making each moment more satisfying.
Maybe a series of STFs, for example, with one boss, who escapes death in all of them except the last one. Or who gets captured alive to create more trouble later, like Taris. So the kind of named enemy we fight 5+ times and don't ever actually kill, whose plot adds an entirely personal dimension to the Iconian story.
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My character Tsin'xing
It's been 30 years since then. Since we haven't heard or seen any cracks in the fabric of space-time, it's safe to assume he stopped caring.
Because he was getting it on.
Abstinence leads to villainy. FACT.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
This may not be the direction the writers of STO plan to take with the Iconians but the story is leading that way and if eventually we do face a massive Iconian invasion directly it will come as a surprising reversal of how they have been portrayed so far.
That said, like others I would consider the Iconians the ultimate enemy for this game and a final confrontation would probably be the game's swan song. That's a long ways off yet considering how many completely unrelated enemies and races who shouldn't be enemies are getting thrown into the blender to make something for us to shoot at.
You sure?
It's the very essence of his time weapons that they are not detected by the people affected.
Regardless, it's what I see happening.
The undine will probably be deterred and reasoned with eventually. Either that, or wiped out by the borg. It depends on how adament they are on this whole food-chain-in-space thing, and how much they still will be in 10 months when we've been destroying armadas of their ships on a daily basis in the name of rep grind...
We'll likely work in the dominion as an uneasy USA/USSR WW2 alliance deal against the iconians. After that, back to this cold war thing we have going, but not really a MMO driving plotline mechanism by any means.
We've still got to mop up the true way and tal shiar, but they're living on borrowed time while we have bigger fish to fry right now.
The voth are arrogant and backed into a corner by the borg, most expedient way to wrap that up would be to have the borg deal the killing blow after the Undine offensive weakened them.
The tholians and elachi are both persistant, powerful, and mysterious menaces that need more expansion upon. These would be two good potential future boogeymen, though I guess the elachi would go down fighting with the Iconians, maybe?
The augments are out there, plotting.
The breen are a peripheral nuisance who prey on our allies in the orelllius block, but hardly a war-level threat.
I dunno. Someday, when all this fighting is over, maybe we can get back to exploring.... :rolleyes:
Your assessments seem a bit random to me.
What exactly makes the Breen a lesser threat then, say, the Tholians or the Elachi?
I think the Undine, Borg and Voth are still at the top of the food chain, below only the Iconians (among material factions).
The Dominion is a tier below, but should still be higher up then the Feds, Romulans and Klinks. Tholians, Breen, Elachi... they appeared little in the series, so we don't know much about their potential.
The Breen at least fought in the Dominion War and almost turned it around for the Founders.
Trouble is we don't know how they would compare to the Undine, Borg, and Voth since they're in their own little slice of another side of the galaxy...all we know is the Iconians don't recommend confrontation with them untill the Alpha/Beta Quadrant powers are conquered.
Look what it took to beat them in DS9, it not only took the major powers of the Alpha/Beta uniting, it also took one of their allies turning on them in the middle of a crucial battle...if the Carassians hadn't switched sides in the end the majority of the galaxy could very well be in Dominion control.
Technically I imagine by some way or another we could see another Dominion war, I mean with all of the manipulation of races by the Iconians who knows...maybe they might try and nudge the Dominion into attacking the Alpha Quadrant again.
So the Breen are more or less non-aggressive at the current game state. They're pretty much pirate raiders from a rogue state. They're raiding the deferi and taking slaves, and tearing through their space looking for perserver artifacts, but there's never any indication that any of these are coordinated, mobilized military actions or that these attacks are backed by the actual confederacy. They could be, and at times do seem very much like, individual, cellular war bands. Orellius sector is more like sub-saharan africa mid 1990's than the western front, right now. The breen were a deciding factor in the Dominion war because of their timely arrival. They re-balanced the scales for the dwindling dominion expeditionary force and the overworked, outmatched cardassian fleet. It was practically a timely last minute mercenary cavalry charge.
It's only a matter of time until the Undine realize they've been duped, and if this entire campaign is reactionary, then the sooner they stop allowing themselves to be manipulated, the better for them. They're more likely to fight the iconians with us than join them, and it's only a matter of time until we get on talking terms. You're telling me they wouldn't acknowledge and prioritize a larger threat like that given their darwinistic philosophy?
We've pretty much already trivialized the borg. We're liberating newly assimilated deferi daily. We have instantaneously remodulating weapons, adaptive shields, and countermeasure consumables are issued to front line troops, and regularly striking at the collective leadership in its hive complexes. We'll easily be able to hold the line against them out in Gamma Orionis until we either wall them off or cure them.
The Voth are a nomadic race restricted to their cityships. The borg pushed them to desperation that is researching omega particles. They were up against the wall, we were already probably going to be the straw that broke their back in that scenario. After that undine offensive that crippled them from the rear? Forget it, they're on the ropes. The borg that backed them into this corner on the delta quadrant side are still pressing that front on them, for the second time in history, dinosaurs are threatened with extinction.
The dominion is a much larger individual power than either of the alpha quadrant powers. Their war machine is pretty much that of an entire subjugated quadrant, so yeah. They also haven't been in a consuming multiple-fronts war for the past 2 years. The only reason they got pushed back in the dominion war was because the wormhole bottlenecked them, overwise they would've overrun us the first time.
Edit: meanwhile, the tholians and elachi are both largely enigmatic to the AQ powers' intel services, both have deep strike capability and are able to pop up more or less anywhere they want in space, both are native to hostile environments that would be difficult to mount an offensive in, and both are using advanced tech that the AQ powers don't have.
Now, those are some good arguments.
Even though I wouldn't dismiss the Borg that easily. And I wouldn't bet that Cryptic will make the Voth nomadic by nature (despite the "hints" in Voyager. On the other hand, it wouldn't make much sense for a 30 million year old culture to not have colonized planets).
Your point about the breen still strikes me a bit opinionated without much basis besides your personal impressions of the entire Orellius situation. Orellius could tell us nothing or everything about the Breen's intentions and capabilities.
I would dismiss the Borg that easily. That fight is over. The Borg were (one of the) big threat(s) in the 24th century. Not anymore. And, well, they're not as superpowered as people think. The Dominion would blow them out of the water. The Tholians too, probably. And the Iconians? Don't make me laugh.
It's like I've said in another thread: it's the great irony of the Borg. They think they can adapt to everything, but it's that same nature -- their Collective -- that leaves them stagnant. They've beaten every other foe by massive overwhelming force, and they don't know what to do now that a faction withstood their attack and adapted.
Quoted for truth.
I bet they still sing songs around the campfires about 'The Great Tribble Hunt' ...
Starfleet fight them because the Borg started the conflict. Otherwise, they would not fight them at all. Even if they assimilated entire non-starfleet worlds, because of the Prime Directive.
Even Janeway (probably lying, but still), when she liberated 7 of 9, told her she would have free will once she had tasted human life. If she wanted to go back as a Borg, she would be free to do so.
The liberated Borgs like Picard had this unspoken choice to. Obviously, they never want to become a Borg again, at least after a while.
It wouldn't surprise if they would set that in motion, a newly told Dominion War with the Breen and who know they would take the Cardies in action by then to !!
We will see people !!
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Hmm...
The aliens from Independence Day? Bob Orci? The ghost of Billy Mays?
GLOBAL WARMING?!
Nah... it will probably just be... A NEW REPUTATION SYSTEM THAT NEVER ENDS!!!!
Go "Task Force Iconian Joint Counter-Strikeforce of Awesomeness"!
Faction change will never happen. It is so heavily wired into pretty much almost everything your character does.