Spoilers Bonus scene from Season One Finale
- Thread starter David cgc
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Agreed. Definitely don't want them implicated for every decision made by some shady admiral.
I guess it was a good thing they didn't know about hugh the borg. Picard got a lecture from an admiral for passing on an opportunity to destroy the Borg.
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Because humanity must break the rules.
That would make a good discussion topic.
Perhaps, but it was also, well, the show!
Since the earliest episodes of TOS season 1, the Federation before it even had a consistent name, was depicted as going to the aid of enemies and doing things potentially detrimental to themselves because they were morally right. The show got all tied up in knots about its perfect utopia later on and yes, that got dumb, but the core idea of a benevolent, alturistic, morally upstanding organisation was there all along. The idea of S31 (especially the idea of it as something that is necessary) undermines that whole humanist concept that we can be better than we are.
There's a reason why I like the idea of S 31 slipping in at the beginning of Starfleet and its charter in ENT. There are still those who feel they must do something in the face of grave threats, no matter what.
I agree that S31 stands against the humanist concept, but I largely find that that's the point.
S31 could be "fixed" if it was basically the project of some right wing ultra-nationalist political faction within the Federation which had members in Star fleet Intelligence etc to basically create this fanatical intelligence/military group which is kept off the books by creating accounting and such. Roddenberry played around with different Federation political factions in the TMP novelisation.
That ship has probably sailed with ENT's "They're part of the Starfleet charter".
That ship has probably sailed with ENT's "They're part of the Starfleet charter".
Although we don't know what section 31 of the charter actually says. It could be that their existence and nature go far beyond what the clause intended. It may even be something as generic as "Starfleet are charged with the defence of Federation worlds from threats external and internal using if necessary extraordinary measures in times of need".
Yeah, S31 could turn out to be a rogue organization of fanatics with no per se legal authority, but I'm not holding my breath.
Dr. Jeff Webber.
That's what it was in DS9 and ENT. Hell, that's what it would be in this very bonus scene if not for the inclusion of the fact that they have Starfleet-adjacent branding and, thus, what that implies about the randos standing around in "Context."
No. Not according to Harris, who very explicitly stated in "Divergence" that the Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31 contains "a few lines that make allowances for bending the rules during times of extraordinary threat." [http://www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise/92.htm]
There's a case that S31 is illegitimate to be found in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" in Koval's account of how Sloane invented Section 31, but Koval is unreliable as a narrator and what he says doesn't mesh either with the assumption that Section 31 already exists in ENT or with the idea that the existence of S31 in STID implies its prior existence in the Prime timeline.
Quite. The idea of a clandestine organisation with deniability all the way up having their own special Delta design and ships with wink wink registration numbers is absurd. If you're going to do cloak and dagger, at least make them vaguely secretive.Can you imagine this guy handing out little black badges to members of *his* Section 31?
I seem to remember that he was in the last episode of the series. Am I mistaken?
As I told you, I've only watched the series once and it was a long time ago.
He made limited apperances in Season 8, but still had a role as the general of the base. He had some hilarious interactions with Ba'al in "Zero Hour." He also camoed in Stargate: Atlantis' premier episode, which was shot in the same time frame.
RDA had requested a more limited schedule to spend more time with his family.
I see, so they didn't reduce his role because they were unhappy with him then.
I liked Lorca because Jason Isaacs is a good actor and he gave the character a sense of depth and complexity that often transcended the actual dialogue he was given to work with. That doesn't mean I agreed with a lot of what the character said or did. He was a complete prick a lot of the time. (In that first confrontation between Lorca and Stamets about the purpose of his research, for instance, I was totally on Stamets' side.)
That's why I dislike it, myself. The whole concept of the Federation is about idealism succeeding... about justice prevailing, about civilization progressing. If you can't buy into that, there are plenty of other SF shows out there with more cynical attitudes.
Indeed. It could be something the organization has twisted beyond recognition, akin to the way groups of "Tenthers" in the U.S. today have a self-serving take on "states' rights" based on a distorted reading of the Tenth Amendment that has simply never been supported by the federal courts, ever, at all.
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