Must There Be A Section 31?
- Thread starter M.A.C.O.
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If one doesn’t believe enough in their values to fight for them within those values, what is the point?
Just to be clear, you actually are not going to address the content of my point but instead merely play a numbers game?
How many do I have to present and what evidence to convince you?
Serious question.
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I mean, that's a misreading because it's not the plague that ends the war. The Founders intended to order a massive Jihad of the Jem'hadar on all Alpha Quadrant species as their dying act that would have wiped out civilization.
It's the fact humans and Odo chose to provide the cure that convinced them not to do it.
That the values are not for you but you wish for a better life for others.
See the Operative from Serenity. Or Luthen from Andor.
I didn't ask them to do that, I don't want them to do that. Ever. That is a dark road of never knowing who has control over your fate. Democracies have elected governments because they are supposed to be doing the will of the people.
Governments do things all the time I didn't ask for. They do it to preserve the particular power or position.
The question is how to the people respond to such unasked for assignments?
You stated, "some writers who actively hate Trek idealism truly believe they're the missing ingredient for the Federation to exist."
If you want me to address the content of your point, provide evidence that there are indeed multiple writers who actively hate Trek idealism. One writer isn't "some", and while I didn't watch the clip, I doubt they claim to 'hate Trek idealism'. It sounds more likely, to me, that you're projecting your own feelings onto the writers you disagree with.
I would like to think that Starfleet doesn't "need" something like Section 31, and that Starfleet's official intelligence department would be sufficient for the job of, ya know, gathering intel, without resorting to things like assassinations, stealing technology (except in "The Enterprise Incident." It's okay when Kirk does it), kidnapping anybody, or anything shady like that.
Yet here we are.
So anyway, Section 31 goes from being a secret cabal operating in the shadows in the pre-Federation days of ENT, to operating more openly as some kind of elite commando group in ST-Disco, then eventually being booted so far back into the shadows that none of the Starfleet officers on DS9 had ever heard of them.
My pet theory, which I came up with just now off the top of my head, is that the "Section 31" we see in CBS Trek, and even in ST Into Darkness, isn't actually the real Section 31 which hides in the shadows. Not even all of Starfleet Command knows about it. So some gung-ho, paranoid admiral such as Marcus in the Kelvin timeline, or somebody similar in the Prime timeline, is unaware of its existence, and sees this big "extraordinary threat" situation on the galactic scene and turns to the other admirals and says, "Hey, we've got this technicality in Article 14, Section 31 of the Starfleet Charter! Let's use that to commission a new elite black ops division that won't be limited by the official rules. Look how brilliant I am to have come up with this idea all on my own!" ...unaware that there is somebody behind the scenes like Harris or Sloan who was just about to try to make contact with their mole in Starfleet Command. And said mole decides it would be prudent not to pipe up and respond, "Well, actually we've already got a, um, never mind."
Kor
Yet here we are.
So anyway, Section 31 goes from being a secret cabal operating in the shadows in the pre-Federation days of ENT, to operating more openly as some kind of elite commando group in ST-Disco, then eventually being booted so far back into the shadows that none of the Starfleet officers on DS9 had ever heard of them.My pet theory, which I came up with just now off the top of my head, is that the "Section 31" we see in CBS Trek, and even in ST Into Darkness, isn't actually the real Section 31 which hides in the shadows. Not even all of Starfleet Command knows about it. So some gung-ho, paranoid admiral such as Marcus in the Kelvin timeline, or somebody similar in the Prime timeline, is unaware of its existence, and sees this big "extraordinary threat" situation on the galactic scene and turns to the other admirals and says, "Hey, we've got this technicality in Article 14, Section 31 of the Starfleet Charter! Let's use that to commission a new elite black ops division that won't be limited by the official rules. Look how brilliant I am to have come up with this idea all on my own!" ...unaware that there is somebody behind the scenes like Harris or Sloan who was just about to try to make contact with their mole in Starfleet Command. And said mole decides it would be prudent not to pipe up and respond, "Well, actually we've already got a, um, never mind."
Kor
Okay, tell me how many I have to show to convince you. I'll provide them.
Because the point is that some writers think Star Trek needs to be darker and edgy for modern audiences and I don't it has to be.
An intention that hasn't exactly been lived up to, even as far back as TOS. I can roll with the idea of humanity having advanced to a degree, but I still subscribe to the idea that even by Kirk or Picard's time that humanity still has its own foibles it never shook off.
Even when Gene had his weird dogmatic period during early TNG insisting that humans are perfect, don't need a court system, and so on, for whatever reason he still introduced concepts like the failed colony of Turkana IV that fell to anarchy and had rape gangs.
No wonder Q still thought of humanity as savage.
Now you're moving the goalposts. Thinking Trek 'needs' to be darker and edgier isn't the same thing as 'hating' Trek idealism.
Yes, Sloan states it's in the Federation charter, those who drew it up knew the reality of the universe, it's not perfect. There were powers demonstrably working against them. Every power had a division of the same caliber and often with their own covert ops fleet. There have been few years with relative peace during the entire run of the Federation since.
In a vacuum, certainly such a need would not have to be fulfilled, but in practice, it's a necessity.
I’m going to quote myself from the other Section 31 thread.
I agree. There was no spy-craft in this movie.
Section 31 should operate like a Cold War, spy thriller. Where investigation and espionage are their primary tactics deployed.
The showrunners and actors all stated that their aim was a Guardians of the Galaxy but with Trek. Instead, they delivered a band of misfits on a “murder & mayhem” spree across two universes. So many people (myself included) have said it Suicide Squad in space. They even did the breakdown intro of who is who, like Suicide Squad 2016 did for its characters.
It’s fine if they want to do that, but think of a different title than Section 31. Maybe, Star Trek Rebels?
The Romulans had the Tal Shiar and the Cardassians had the Obsidian Order. I’m not against the idea of Section 31. But an out in the open (like in DSC) and loud (like in S31) organization is counterintuitive to the notion that this is a shadowy/spy organization.
Section 31 began as Kurtzman’s idea of doing Mission Impossible in space. Then the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy became a big sensation. So Kurtzman wanted to emulate that. Then Suicide Squad became a big hit. An entourage of anti-heroes who are protecting and serving. So Kurtzman wanted to emulate that with his own band of baddies and misfits.
7 years of development hell (since 2018), Michelle Yeoh winning an Oscar and Paramount looking to capitalize on that Oscar win, we get Section 31 straight to streaming. And these are the results. As Star Trek, it’s unrecognizable and as Section 31 (DS9 and ENT) it’s unrecognizable.
Chasing someone else’s dream, running someone else’s race. You lose your own sense of identity.
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The funny thing is, if they'd actually ripped off The Suicide Squad properly, then we would've had the characters divided over ideology and each forced to decide whether they want to continue doing bad things to support the agenda of bad people.
The comparison to the Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar is always made, Odo even makes the comparison himself. But Section 31 is not like either organization at all. The Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar are domestic security agencies. And while they also engage in foreign intelligence, their primary concern is keeping the populations in check. Section 31's mandate on the other hand is to deal with existential threats to the Federation. And while they will without hesitation deal with a Federation citizen who poses an existential threat, Section 31 is otherwise not involved with domestic security at all.
There's also the fact that Section 31 is supposedly not accountable to anyone. The Tal Shiar is accountable to the Romulan government, while the Obsidian Order is supposed to be accountable to the Cardassian government, though Cardassia had a weak government which basically resulted in the Order having carte blanche.
An organisation like S31 is NOT necessary or needed.
I didn't particularly find Sloane's explanation in Ds9 convincing... mainly because, it was Starfleet that established good relations with many alien species and eventually paved the way to formation of the Federation (yes, they also ended up in conflicts, but to be fair, that's probably what you could expect with some alien species).
When you think about it, S31's involvement has been incidental and could have been handled through other means.
In essence, they are more of a liability than anything else. And incidentally, Starfleet seems to be cleaning up their mess more than not.
I didn't particularly find Sloane's explanation in Ds9 convincing... mainly because, it was Starfleet that established good relations with many alien species and eventually paved the way to formation of the Federation (yes, they also ended up in conflicts, but to be fair, that's probably what you could expect with some alien species).
When you think about it, S31's involvement has been incidental and could have been handled through other means.
In essence, they are more of a liability than anything else. And incidentally, Starfleet seems to be cleaning up their mess more than not.
I feel that part of the problem with discussing whether S31 is necessary or needed is that we have no idea what S31's done other than the exposure we've had to them, and I think TPTB are understandably leery of ever sending an unequivocal message that 'S31 were right to do what they did, at least in this instance.'. If they really are as clandestine as they claim to be and appear to be in DS9, at least, then if they're having a 10% failure rate, that still means they're having a 90% success rate, whatever we might think of them as an organization.
As I think I said upthread, we might feel differently if S31 had preemptively stopped the Xindi or the Borg or Vger from attacking Earth. It would be interesting to see an alternate timeline where such occurred.
As I think I said upthread, we might feel differently if S31 had preemptively stopped the Xindi or the Borg or Vger from attacking Earth. It would be interesting to see an alternate timeline where such occurred.
The only things Section 31 can do that we haven't seen our heroes do is create a bioweapon with the explicit goal of genocide and actually use it, and classic evil admiral stuff like try to start a war. It's an unnecessary organization because Kirk can hijack a Romulan cloaking device, Picard can already go undercover and infiltrate a crew of thieves looking for a superweapon, Sisko can poison the atmosphere of a planet to stop a terrorist, Janeway can torture renegade Starfleet Officers, M'Benga can create a temporary super solider serum and massacre some Klingons, and Jack Ransom can lead a covert team to extract a prisoner from Romulus itself.
There's not much room for a secret organization willing to do the hard things Starfleet won't when Starfleet is perfectly willing to do those things, or at the very least not even come close to really punishing officers who do.
There's not much room for a secret organization willing to do the hard things Starfleet won't when Starfleet is perfectly willing to do those things, or at the very least not even come close to really punishing officers who do.
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