In 2370, the border conflicts, rival territorial claims and brushfire wars that had defined
the relationship between the United Federation of Planets and the Cardassian Union for over
a decade finally came to an end.
A series of treaties established a new demilitarized zone and redrew the border between the two
powers in the hopes of establishing a lasting peace.
Instead, the treaty fostered a deep resentment and failed to heal the scars that the conflict
had left on both sides.
Even among the highest levels of Starfleet Command and the Federation Diplomatic Corps,
many believed that any type of appeasement would only be seen as weakness by the Cardassians.
Hardest hit however were the hundreds of thousands of Federation citizens whose colonies were
suddenly on the wrong side of the border.
The situation in the DMZ quickly deteriorated.
Colonists were forced to either abandon their homes or remain under the unscrupulous governance
of an authoritarian state.
Food replicators were sabotaged, armed mobs were organized, and the newly installed Cardassian
overseers began a systematic policy of repression and harassment.
Time and time again the Cardassian Union was found to be abusing the trust of the Federation,
but in each instance, Starfleet restrained itself rather then let the tenuous armistice
collapse back into war.
Abandoned by their government, Federation colonists began taking matters into their
own hands and standing up to the Cardassians.
They were joined by disillusioned Starfleet Officers who rallied together under the belief
that the price of peace was too high and that the basic principles of the Federation had
been betrayed.
When they announced their intentions to the galaxy, they were branded as misfits, renegades,
criminals and terrorists.
The name they chose for themselves however was one used centuries earlier when another
band of resistance fighters dared fight back against oppression and terror: The Maquis.
Pursued by both Starfleet Intelligence and the sinister agents of the Obsidian Order,
the Maquis were organized into a series of decentralized cells, managed in such a way
that the capture or destruction of any one cell could not threaten the greater organization.
Cell leaders were often former Starfleet Officers, whose training and experience made them exceptionally
well suited to evading capture and formulating effective tactics and strategies.
Many of these personnel were combat veterans of the Cardassian Wars, fuelled by memories
such as the indiscriminate use of gravitic mines or the massacre on Setlik III.
Accordingly, some Maquis exhibited a great deal of xenophobia towards the Cardassians,
often referring to them derogatorily as “spoonheads”.
The nature of the movement also attracted mercenaries and cutthroats and the more idealistic
elements of the Maquis were forced to work alongside those who were simply looking to
kill as many Cardassians as they could.
Unable to act openly, even on friendly worlds in the Demilitarized Zone, the Maquis instead
operated across the Badlands, a region of space widely avoided due to its intense plasma
storms and gravitational anomalies.
This disposition, echoing that of the Bajoran Resistance in their own campaign against the
Cardassians years earlier, prevented even the most advanced sensors from locating hidden
Maquis worlds and strongholds.
Black market weapons and munitions had flooded into the demilitarized zone at the first opportunity
and these stockpiles were quickly acquired by the Maquis and transported to hidden depots
across the Badlands.
Unable to engage Starfleet or the Cardassian military in open battle, the Maquis instead
adopted various forms of irregular warfare, including ambushes, raids, bombings and hit
and run tactics.
Their ships were well suited to this type of mobility based warfare, often obsolete
and decrepit civilian freighters or patrol craft retrofitted with military grade hardware.
Over time, the Maquis fleet would expand to include ships recovered from forgotten anchorages
leftover from the Bajoran resistance, and even captured Starfleet shuttles and fighters.
All across the Demilitarized Zone, the Maquis fought an underground war against their counterparts
within the Cardassian colonists.
Despite the best efforts of both sides, each rival paramilitary group continued to obtain
more armaments and resources through neutral third parties and backdoor channels within
the Federation and Cardassian Union.
Each government would accuse the other of purposely arming their respective group although
these allegations were never conclusively proven.
Maquis attacks grew bolder until even Cardassian warships were directly targeted by Maquis raiders.
These strikes humiliated the Cardassian Union while the Federation was likewise forced to
contend with the embarrassment of the continued flood of Starfleet officers resigning or defecting
from their posts to take part in the conflict.
Maquis sympathisers within Starfleet did tremendous damage, even managing to briefly assume control
of the USS Defiant and use it to attack targets deep within the Cardassian Union.
Attacks such as these should have given the Cardassians all the pretext they needed to
launch a renewed invasion into the star systems of the Demilitarized Zone, but the conditions
on Cardassia Prime was far graver than was widely known.
After the near complete destruction of the Obsidian Order during a disastrous preemptive
strike against the looming threat of the Dominion, the Cardassian dissident movement overthrew
the military juncta known as the Central Command and placed power back into the hands of the
civilian Detapa Council.
In 2372, the Klingon Empire launched a surprise attack into the Cardassian Union under the
belief that their provisional civilian government had been infiltrated by Dominion Agents.
Cardassia was beset by both inner turmoil and foreign invasion and the Maquis were given
an almost free hand across the DMZ.
Additionally, the Klingons were more than willing to provide the Maquis with clandestine
support, which included a great deal of material assistance and even a supply of cloaking devices.
The stage was set for the final phase of the Maquis’ campaign.
On the Federation station Deep Space 9, sleeper agent Michael Eddington engineered a brilliant
operation in which he obtained 12 industrial grade replicators intended as part of a relief
shipment for the beleaguered Cardassian people.
Under Eddington’s leadership, the Maquis used these new resources to engineer a biogenic
agent deadly to Cardassians, but harmless to most other species.
The bioweapon was deployed on several Cardassian colonies paving the way for the Maquis to
reclaim them.
While Michael Eddington was eventually captured, under his leadership, the Maquis had achieved
the impossible.
The DMZ had been liberated, and the Cardassians were in no position to interfere.
On Maquis worlds, preparations were made to declare their colonies an independent nation,
one that would allow its citizens to finally decide their own destiny.
But this new era was never brought to fruition.
In desperation, the Cardassian Union agreed to become a client state of the Dominion.
Reinforced with powerful Jem’Hadar warships, within three days of the announcement, the
Klingon Empire was forced to retreat from Cardassian territory and every Maquis colony
within the demilitarized zone was destroyed.
Even the Badlands could not provide a safe haven for the remaining Maquis, advanced Dominion
sensors cut through the interference and despite a valiant defense, the organization was no
match for the Jem’Hadar.
The dream of the Maquis that so many fought and died for was never realized.
Across the Federation, it is dismissed as a misguided folly, an organization forced
to pay the price for its own recklessness.
But as a Starfleet Commander once put it, “On Earth there is no poverty, no crime,
no war.
You look out the window at Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise.
Well, it's easy to be a saint in paradise.
But the Maquis do not live in paradise.
Out there, in the Demilitarized Zone, all problems have not been solved yet.
There are no saints, just people; angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever
it takes to survive.”
The Templin Institute investigates alternate worlds and realities.
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