The Dominion Wars Storyline is set in an alternate universe, or follows an alternate timeline. Same thing. Everything is pretty much the same as you have seen in Trek, until the DS9 episode "The Changing Face of Evil" - this is where everything changes, as Captain Sisko dies when the USS Defiant is destroyed by the combined forces of the Breen, the Cardassians & the Dominion.

Our story begins in the year 2375, Stardate 52690.1. Despite the loss of Captain Benjamin Sisko, the man who engineered much of the Federation's recent re-surgance in the war with the Dominion. The Alliance continued to push the Dominion deep into Cardassian Space. Finally, they managed to reach the Cardassian's home system. The three leaders of the alliance met to make the last decision of the war. Would they leave the Dominion where they were, and try to arrange some kind of peace treaty. Or would they make the final assault and finish the job. The Romulan's felt that enough lives had already been lost and wanted to leave the Dominion where they were. The Federation was a little undecided, although to nobody's surprise, the Klingon's wanted to finish the Dominion once and for all. The Federation eventually agreed & very reluctantly, the Romulans agreed to end the war once and for all.

Back on Deep Space Nine and on Bajor, everyone was in a deep state of mourning, as the Emissary to the Prophets had died. Nobody could understand how this was possible. The Prophet's were outside of time, how could they not know their emissary was going to die? Things began to become more mysterious, as a Cardassian had been sighted on Bajor, and an entire village of Bajoran's had been found dead. The Bajoran Government put it down to a mysterious plague, even though no evidence of any toxins or virus's had been found anywhere in the village. Rumours were rampant - after all, the village was only a mile away from the Fire Caves, where it is rumoured that the Pagh Wraith's serve their eternal imprisonment after they were forced out of the Celestial Temple by the Prophets.

Over half of the Federation Fleet, and nearly three quarters of the Klingon Fleet were assembled just 10 light years away from the Cardassian System. They were awaiting the arrival of the Romulan Fleet, which was over 8 hours overdue. A subspace communication had told them that the Romulan Fleet had been ambushed by a Dominion Strike Force, and that they would be at the rendevous point as soon as possible. Time was running short however, by now, the Dominion were surely aware of the large fleet that had assembled just a short hop from Cardassia Prime. Then, it happened, Cardassian, Dominion & Breen ships began to drop out of warp, first there were just a scattering of the ships that could reach high warp speeds. Then they began to appear in their hundreds. Over 2000 ships in total, and without the Romulans, the Federation & the Klingons were outnumbered two to one.

And so the battle begins.......

(TO BE CONTINUED)