Battle of Cardassia

In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Battle of Cardassia was the final major engagement of the Dominion War featured in the hit series Star Trek Deep Space 9. The episode the battle was featured in was "What You Leave Behind".

Prelude

By late 2375, the Dominion's seemingly unstoppable offensives into Federation and other Allied territories had stalled. With the conflict dragging on, the Cardassian industrial infrastructure was unable to sustain the Dominion's starship requirements. Though the Dominion had impressive shipbuilding techniques and could clone its soldiers, thereby replacing casualties a lot faster than the Allied forces, the entering of the Romulan Star Empire into the war had brought the conflict to a stalemate.

With the allies only foothold in Cardassian territory lost in the Chin'Toka system, the Allied commanders agreed that the only way they could win the war soon would be to launch an invasion of Cardassia Prime its self, thereby removing the Dominion leadership from power. The Female Changeling ordered a complete withdrawal of all Dominion forces from captured territories back to Cardassian space. The idea was that with smaller territory to defend, the Dominion could concentrate their forces more and repel any attack, building up its forces for a renewed invasion some years later.

Since the allied forces were unable to build ships at the same rate as the Jem Hadar, the allied commanders agreed to launch the invasion of Cardassia Prime. A fleet of some 1,200 ships were gathered at Deep Space 9, and made a beeline directly for Cardassia Prime, crossing the five light year distance over the course of around one and a half days.

The Battle

The Dominion had full knowledge of the Allied invasion fleet moving towards Cardassia Prime. The Dominion fleet was around 2,000 ships-strong. But the Dominion lines were spread relatively thinly, so the Female Changeling ordered Weyoun to send additional reinforcements to the Dominion's fleet. However when they activated communications, all Dominion installations on Cardassia Prime lost power; the Cardassian Rebellion led by Legate Damar had sabotaged the communications network. The Dominion leadership were now unable to contact their fleet.

On the Cardassian border the two fleets engaged, pummeling each other with torpedo and energy beam fire. The battle quickly degenerated into a melee of close quarter combat, each fleet inflicted heavy losses upon their opponents. Despite the Jem Hadar lines spread thinly, they heavily hammered the Romulan lines, destroying their flagship, the IRW D'ridthau. Leaderless, the Romulan lines began to break up under the enormous pressure of the Jem Hadar attack.

Admiral Ross attempted to rally ships to launch an attack against the Dominion left, but Sisko convinced him it would be too risky, the Dominion's left flank was too heavily guarded. Instead Sisko, commanding from the USS Defiant led several attack wings and reinforced the Romulan lines. However this left the Allied centre and left weakened, which began to crumble under the enormous pressure of the Dominion assaults.

Back on Cardassia Prime, the Dominion regained their communications. As punishment for the Cardassian's betrayal of the alliance, Lakarian City on Cardassia was bombarded by Jem Hadar ships, annihilating it completely. Some 2 million civilians perished during the bombardment. Distributed by Weyoun, the Cardassian portion of the Dominion fleet, some 700 ships, caught wind of this and turned on their Dominion allies, firing upon Jem Hadar and Breen ships alike.

Using this new advantage, the allies rallied an attack on the Dominion centre, punching through their lines and breaking up the fleet. Furious, the Female Changeling ordered a full withdrawal to Cardassia Prime, proclaiming "there will be no more running". Meanwhile in space, the Allies celebrated their victory, but decided to press on against the routing fleet, rather than let them build up their fleets again.

At this, the allies advanced. Meanwhile the Female Changeling ordered Weyoun and Thot Pran to begin exterminating the Cardassian populace. Jem Hadar soldiers began an indiscriminate rampage, showing complete disregard for civilians, they shot every Cardassian they came across. In space, the allies found a daunting sight. After having lost an astounding one third of their fleet, thereby reducing their overall strength to around 800 ships though the Cardassians brought the strength to around 1,500, the Allies planned a three pronged assault against the Dominion: the Federation ships would attack the Orbital Weapon Platforms, the Romulans and the Cardassians would assault the Jem Hadar while the Klingons would fight the Breen. The attack was predicted to cost the allies some 40% of their forces.

On Cardassia Prime however, the Cardassian Rebellion, led by Legate Damar launched a headlong assault on the Dominion headquarters, managing to break into the facility and taking Weyoun and the Dominion leadership hostage. Still the Changeling would not surrender, ordering the Dominion fleet in orbit to fight till the last man. Fuelled with anger, Garak shot Weyoun much to the dismay of the Changeling. In orbit, recently cured of the Morphogenic Virus, Odo beamed down to the surface and linked with the Female Changeling, curing her of the virus and convincing her to surrender.

At last, the Changeling surrendered - the battle - and the war - were suddenly over.

Aftermath

Following the Battle, the Treaty of Bajor was signed, in which the Dominion agreed to withdraw all ships to the Gamma Quadrant, they would end their occupation of the Cardassian Union and the Breen while the Female Changeling would come under Federation Custody to stand trial for War Crimes.

However, despite the battle being a decisive victory for the Allies, in the long run it was bittersweet. Some 800,000,000 Cardassians had been massacred by the Dominion, throughout the war the allies had lost thousands of warships and fighters and both the Cardassian Union and the Klingon Empire had been left destitute.

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