It's not that unusual for states to have operating within them paramilitary groups that do nasty things that their members feel are best for the state (or at least their vision of their state) that the official state denounces but actually don't try very hard to stop.
Would Something Like Section 31 Exist in Real Life?
- Thread starter VulcanMindBlown
- Start date
Comments like this veer far too close to personal jabs and do nothing to promote a good discussion. Consider this a friendly warning not to do it again or real infractions will follow.
Until you either earn a political science degree or audit its major courses, you do not know what a political science curriculum teaches. To claim that it only teaches how systems nominally work is flat-out false -- I cannot tell you how many professors I had who would emphasize that how the system is supposed to work and how the system actually works are two different things.
Section 31 is named for the subsection of an Article of the Starfleet Charter that vaguely alluded to the creation of subgroups in times of agression to temporarily operate without the full operational consent of Starfleet and presumably later, the Federation.
The wording is very vague, it does not give any specific powers, it limits any group formed to times of say full declared war or imminent threat to the Federation. Which is a very shakey legal ground to create a group that is from what we see in Into Darkness, operating out of every level of Starfleet and Federation beaurocracy on a non-stop basis, using technology ahead of the current fleet.
In unmarked vessels giving no IFF, able to commit acts of violence against the rest of the fleet and Federation representative officials, officers and vessels.
It's not just vigilantism, but taken to a staggering degree that verges well into facism, lawlessness, war mongering and the expressing of bigoted, violent elements of the organisations personnel and even becoming a form of terrorist group with members the likes of Terra Prime being radicalised and finding a safe haven within it to express their hate and anger.
Able to unilaterally commit acts of war against sovereign states that could lead to war far more than stop it, and persue everything up to and including the genocide of entire socities without any moderating of their actions from any outside source.
The wording is very vague, it does not give any specific powers, it limits any group formed to times of say full declared war or imminent threat to the Federation. Which is a very shakey legal ground to create a group that is from what we see in Into Darkness, operating out of every level of Starfleet and Federation beaurocracy on a non-stop basis, using technology ahead of the current fleet.
In unmarked vessels giving no IFF, able to commit acts of violence against the rest of the fleet and Federation representative officials, officers and vessels.
It's not just vigilantism, but taken to a staggering degree that verges well into facism, lawlessness, war mongering and the expressing of bigoted, violent elements of the organisations personnel and even becoming a form of terrorist group with members the likes of Terra Prime being radicalised and finding a safe haven within it to express their hate and anger.
Able to unilaterally commit acts of war against sovereign states that could lead to war far more than stop it, and persue everything up to and including the genocide of entire socities without any moderating of their actions from any outside source.
Actually, it is named after Article 14, Section 31 of the United Earth Starfleet Charter, which contained "a few lines that make allowances for bending the rules during times of extraordinary threat." So really the UESF Charter doesn't even go as far as what you're describing.
Agreed 100%.
I'm going by an old downloadble version I used to have years ago, which might have been part of a printed book back in the 1990's, I lost all those books a few years back. It had something like the Federation constitution and a form of Starfleet charter that was a lot shorter than the one based on the UN version.
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, the canon has contradicted it -- so really Section 31 doesn't even have that much of an excuse to exist.
Yeah, that is even worse. I remember a Section that made at least one shadowy insinuation, but the official version just handwaves Starfleet itself (not someone else) being able to do what is necessary to save the day, and they could claim section 31 as a clause to lessen any penalties.
Probably more to handwave Kirk being given so many chances since he did ultimately save the day and more lives than if he hadn't acted.
There's nothing in SF/UFP law then to support the creation of an entirely new subsidiary that operated outside of the law all the time. Even if you fudged the wording of "imminent threat" to mean any thing at any time that 'might' just turn hostile, that's taking the tiniest loophole and abusing it to a ridiculous degree. But I don't even see that clause in there.
They're literally a terrorist sub-group operating with the persmission of the likes of Admiral Cartwright and other xenophobic officers at the right levels to grant them materials needed. That's even scarier, a whole group of SF officers that determined to see others as a threat they allow these people to exist and potentially start wars.
I mean, we have enough of that in real life right now...
