It was incredibly stupid.

I know a lot of people don't care about this, but I wanna summarize one of the least self-aware moments in Trek (and that's saying something). https://twitter.com/marchofthenorth/status/1320585722663964672

Okay, two sides: Cardassians and the Federation.

Had a war. Very bloody. No real threat to the Federation's existence but the Cardassians didn't believe there was any such thing as "war crimes." Long time backstory throughout TNG.

Then came the indigenous peoples.

After the war there was a demilitarized zone, and this weird cold war where both sides were putting colonies right on the edge.

Then a new treaty came out and some Federation worlds with colonies on them were just given to the Cardassians.

Just, y'know. Just because.

One of those worlds had a colony of indigenous peoples from Earth living there, and I say "indigenous" as in "every time we saw these people we committed genocide like monsters."

They wouldn't leave their world because they believed it was sacred. Whole big fuss. Sad Picard.

In the end, it was decided they could stay but they would effectively lose their Federation citizenship and become Cardassian subjects.

You can read that summary how ever many times you like, it won't get any less idiotic or horrible.

Well, this same "compromise" was made for other Federation colonies suddenly on the wrong side of the treaty.

Oh, it happened with the Cardassians, too, only their colonies ended up under Federation jurisdiction with rights and laws and it was peachy for them.

But the ex-Federation citizens were harassed, arrested, tortured, killed, and expected to submit to the Cardassians like a permanent underclass.

Eventually they had enough. They formed an organized resistance called The Maquis, named for French freedom fighters under Nazi rule.

The former Federation colonies started attacking Cardassian colonies, and then the Cardassian colonies started attacking back, and as one episode put it, suddenly the colonies had their own little war.

And then the Federation decided to step in.

On behalf of the Cardassians.

It was "Peace at all cost" over justice. It was literally prizing civility over people's lives.

And then in one of the worst episodes on DS9, Ben Sisko poisoned a Maquis colony world making it uninhabitable for human life.

A straight up no question goddamned war crime.

(Oh, sure there was a convenient little asterisk that a colony the Maquis had poisoned was still habitable for humans and the poisoned Maquis world could support Cardassians so they did a happy little switch and nobody was homeless and Jesus fucking Boomer Christ)

This persisted on DS9 for years, until finally the Cardassians got powerful new allies called the Dominion.

And then they destroyed every single Federation colony in the DMZ.

They murdered millions, if not tens of millions, which pretty much indicated the Maquis had been right.

The show never really acknowledged that. The Maquis were wiped out with a whimper and members who had been captured still rotted in Federation prisons despite the fact that they had been right.

The Federations appeased monsters and harmed its own people for the sake of civility.

It was stupid and painful, and worst of all the production itself indicated we should sympathize with the Federation and not the "unreasonable" Maquis.

It hammered home the fact that the Maquis were bad simply because they wouldn't quietly be murdered by fascists.

And the minute the Cardassians had a military advantage, *they* started the war anyway. Trying to stay in their good graces was pointless.

You cannot appease fascists. https://twitter.com/PixelsRed/status/1320636038918905858

It was everything not only wrong with Trek but wrong with us as a society: civility first, no matter what. It doesn't mattered who is being murdered, the REAL crime was not going through proper channels.

It's a black mark on Trek, and it's a black mark on us.

OH SWEET JUMPING FUCKLORD YES

"Insurrection" is Picard doing the exact same shit the Maquis were doing except it was against a different set of alien fascists.

BUT WHEN PICARD DOES IT HE'S GOOD AND YES EVERYONE WAS WHITE THIS TIME BUT SHHH https://twitter.com/Abstruse/status/1320634671391219712