Section 31: Rogue

[Hartzilla2007]

S If it's survived for 200 years, I sincerely doubt that our heroes, no matter how long they have at it, will wipe it out completely.

Tell that to the Borg.

Technically, the Borg were "wiped out" because the UFP--i.e., Captain Hernandez--made an appeal to a super-powerful race, etc.

I don't suppose you're thinking the Kirk Cabal could recruit the Q in their efforts?

maybe remember they've been working against 31 for 100 years at this point. And they don't have to wipe out the the organization just expose it to destroy it's power base.

They can't "tie up" Section 31. There are too many fans who will demand more Section 31 books, and refuse to buy any others until it happens.

DANG righ--

Wait...

To be honest, if an Ezri/Julian shipper like myself could suppress the urge to boycot TrekLit due to Unjoined...somehow, I doubt that. Still...I CAN tell you Pocket and the writers will NOT hear the end of it.

Considering how well the Janeway death outcry is going I don't think Pocket would have anything to worry about. Not to mention if they did it about the same time another major event that would annoy certain fans occurs aka the Hobus the 31 fans may not be heard over the Romulan fans.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Tell that to the Borg.

Technically, the Borg were "wiped out" because the UFP--i.e., Captain Hernandez--made an appeal to a super-powerful race, etc.

I don't suppose you're thinking the Kirk Cabal could recruit the Q in their efforts?

maybe remember they've been working against 31 for 100 years at this point. And they don't have to wipe out the the organization just expose it to destroy it's power base.

Well...I would think that, if the Cabal were successful in "exposing" the org--and even in bringing the big names (such as Cole, Zweller, and the team that took out Zife) to court and conviction--I would think that that would actually be a victory for 31, in disguise.

Think about it. Everyone thinks 31's been taken down, or at least crippled beyond repair. So...the remnants of the Bureau would just regroup, and keep themselves underground, until all the fervor has died down, and then come back--only this time, they're more careful to cover their tracks...at least for the next 100 years....


On Janeway...her half-passing, half-rest-with-assistance-from-Lady-Q DOES leave a door for some young aspiring writer to reverse that little...unfortunate incident....

(No, that's not a promise. I don't have anything in mind to that accord. Let someone else bring her back. I'm focusing on Ezri, Julian, and The Agent Who Must Not Be Named, thank you very much!)

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Technically, the Borg were "wiped out" because the UFP--i.e., Captain Hernandez--made an appeal to a super-powerful race, etc.

I don't suppose you're thinking the Kirk Cabal could recruit the Q in their efforts?

maybe remember they've been working against 31 for 100 years at this point. And they don't have to wipe out the the organization just expose it to destroy it's power base.

Well...I would think that, if the Cabal were successful in "exposing" the org--and even in bringing the big names (such as Cole, Zweller, and the team that took out Zife) to court and conviction--I would think that that would actually be a victory for 31, in disguise.

Think about it. Everyone thinks 31's been taken down, or at least crippled beyond repair. So...the remnants of the Bureau would just regroup, and keep themselves underground, until all the fervor has died down, and then come back--only this time, they're more careful to cover their tracks...at least for the next 100 years....

Except their so arrogant that its likely their whole house of cards would come down. Also Section 31's big thing is nobody knows they exist so exposing them would totally screw them over. You see unlike their HONEST counterparts on Cardassia and Romulus the cowards at Section 31 would piss themselves if people knew they existed.

 

[chelly]

Would the Klingon Imperial Intelligence be the same thing as section 31or are they different? In Krad's book the scenes with Lorgh sort of sounded like was he (Lorgh) could be section 31. (or be in charge of some like it)

 

[JD]

Based on what I've read and seen, KI seemed to be a fairly standard intelligence agency.

 

[DonIago]

Agreed. The difference between S31 and all of the other intelligence agencies we've seen is that S31's existence isn't known to the general public, whereas the Tal Shiar, Obsidian Order, et al. are.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Section 31's big thing is nobody knows they exist so exposing them would totally screw them over. You see unlike their HONEST counterparts on Cardassia and Romulus the cowards at Section 31 would piss themselves if people knew they existed.

But now, if the heroes believe them to be taken down, it will be the same as "no one knows about us". Now, it's "everyone thinks we're dead"--which, frankly, is even better for them!

Except their so arrogant that its likely their whole house of cards would come down.

Well, I think the agents that get arrested would be the idiots who let their arrogance get the best of them--i.e., those who did the stupid, irrational things that get exposed, such as Cole's (alleged) actions in the New Bejing Massacre, Zweller's mistaken mission to hand a world to the Romulans, and (a century ago) those completely stupid authorities behind the Omega experiment.

Those who remain "underground", having been clensed of the incompetents, will thus be more efficient than ever--and more subtle, and succesful, than ever.

The Order and the Tal Shiar were demolished in one swift stroke--because they were there for all to see, including the Founders.

With Section 31...you never know how hard you've hit them, or how much of it is out there.

(Megalomaniacal voice) Don't you see? NO ONE can destroy...Section 31!

 

[Christopher]

Agreed. The difference between S31 and all of the other intelligence agencies we've seen is that S31's existence isn't known to the general public, whereas the Tal Shiar, Obsidian Order, et al. are.

More to the point, the difference is that those organizations are official extensions of their governments and, at least in theory, legally answerable to those governments for their actions (though not always in practice, particularly with the Obsidian Order). The equivalent in the UFP would be Starfleet Intelligence, and perhaps whatever civilian intelligence agency the UFP might have alongside it (since I'm reluctant to accept the idea that Starfleet fulfills the functions of civilian government to the extent that it's often assumed to by Trek fans and authors). Section 31 is a rogue operation answerable to no one. It's not an agency, it's a conspiracy.

 

[Rush Limborg]

^A "conspiracy" sactioned by the Starfleet Charter.

And no, I'm not referring to the United Earth Starfleet Charter--but the UFP Starfleet Charter, as indicated by Cloak, the Kirk Section 31 novel.



BTW...someone in my 31 thread/poll brought up the possibilty that 31 wasn't really autonomous--that the false autonomy was simply to provide Plausible Deniablility.

To paraphrase something from Mission: Impossible, "As always, if any of your division are captured, killed, or otherwise exposed, Starfleet will disavow any knowledge of your actions".

To be honest, that Dougherty got the blame for the Federation Counci's order in Insurrection--and that Vaughn made the deserving-of-eye-rolling connection of Dougherty to Section 31 in Abyss--could well support that theory....

 

[Hartzilla2007]

^A "conspiracy" sactioned by the Starfleet Charter.

So reading a section of the charter and deciding to not set something up the Federation has control of (that's what autonomous means FYI) and instead be a criminal with delusions of grandeur is okay?

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Section 31's big thing is nobody knows they exist so exposing them would totally screw them over. You see unlike their HONEST counterparts on Cardassia and Romulus the cowards at Section 31 would piss themselves if people knew they existed.

But now, if the heroes believe them to be taken down, it will be the same as "no one knows about us". Now, it's "everyone thinks we're dead"--which, frankly, is even better for them!

Not really the moment they resurface Starfleet would be on them like white on rice and its not like Starfleet officers except the corrupt and/or evil ones would join after they are exposed seeing as all their dirty laundry would be out in the open and they wouldn't have any real power to force them to join since they would just be regular crooks now instead of being secret crooks.

 

[Rush Limborg]

^Well, I would think the trials would result in a controversy of sorts--such as what we are having, now.

Thus...I would think quite a few highly honorable, well-intentioned officers would join the "reformed" Bureau, with the notion that they will be able to do what others won't, as their hands aren't as tied....

Sloan, for example--whatever his faults, real or alleged, lived by a code of honor--albeit a far different one than Bashir approved of. Interestingly enough, his card in the Star Trek CCG has both "Honor" and "Treachery" in its skills box. (Okay, for those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about...it's a card game, which got me into Trek in the first place....)

As for the entry in the Charter, I assume the authors put it there for a reason....

 

[Hartzilla2007]

^Well, I would think the trials would result in a controversy of sorts--such as what we are having, now.

Thus...I would think quite a few highly honorable, well-intentioned officers would join the "reformed" Bureau, with the notion that they will be able to do what others won't, as their hands aren't as tied....

Unless 31 plans to bind itself to Fedeartion oversight then that will be until they realized their just as crokked as they've always been and then they will try to take them down all over again only this time the idiots at 31 will have let their enemies through their front door.

 

[Christopher]

^A "conspiracy" sactioned by the Starfleet Charter.

No, a conspiracy whose perpetrators justify it by a self-serving distortion of a vaguely worded passage in that charter. Just because the framers of the charter neglected to overtly forbid it, that doesn't mean they actually intended it.

True, something like the US Constitution has plenty of ambiguous language that's open to interpretation, and lawmakers and justices have often interpreted them differently than the framers may have intended. But the key there is that they're legally authorized to do so, and their judgments are subject to review and challenge by other branches of government. The people in Section 31 who've chosen to interpret that vague passage in the Starfleet Charter as justifying the existence of a lawless black-ops group have no legal or constitutional authority to codify such an interpretation. So there's absolutely nothing "sanctioning" their actions, no authority who's said that it's a valid interpretation of the Charter. They're acting entirely on their own, answerable to no one. That makes them outlaws.

 

[Rush Limborg]

^A "conspiracy" sactioned by the Starfleet Charter.

No, a conspiracy whose perpetrators justify it by a self-serving distortion of a vaguely worded passage in that charter. Just because the framers of the charter neglected to overtly forbid it, that doesn't mean they actually intended it.

True, something like the US Constitution has plenty of ambiguous language that's open to interpretation, and lawmakers and justices have often interpreted them differently than the framers may have intended. But the key there is that they're legally authorized to do so, and their judgments are subject to review and challenge by other branches of government. The people in Section 31 who've chosen to interpret that vague passage in the Starfleet Charter as justifying the existence of a lawless black-ops group have no legal or constitutional authority to codify such an interpretation. So there's absolutely nothing "sanctioning" their actions, no authority who's said that it's a valid interpretation of the Charter. They're acting entirely on their own, answerable to no one. That makes them outlaws.

Again, Chris, I'm not referring to the UE Starfleet Charter Article 14 Section 31, but the UFP Charter in the Kirk 31 novel, Cloak, which specifically establishes "an autonomous investigative agency", etc.

 

[Sci]

^A "conspiracy" sactioned by the Starfleet Charter.

There's a difference between establishing an organization with nonspecific authorities over miscellaneous issues, which is what is indicated by the Federation Starfleet Charter section seen in Section 31: Rogue, and establishing an organization that is legally granted carte blanche to operate above the law.

Nothing about the section of the Federation Starfleet Charter seen in that novel gives Section 31 the authority to operate above the law and beyond the control of the civilian government, nor to do whatever it wants.

^A "conspiracy" sactioned by the Starfleet Charter.

No, a conspiracy whose perpetrators justify it by a self-serving distortion of a vaguely worded passage in that charter. Just because the framers of the charter neglected to overtly forbid it, that doesn't mean they actually intended it.

True, something like the US Constitution has plenty of ambiguous language that's open to interpretation, and lawmakers and justices have often interpreted them differently than the framers may have intended. But the key there is that they're legally authorized to do so, and their judgments are subject to review and challenge by other branches of government. The people in Section 31 who've chosen to interpret that vague passage in the Starfleet Charter as justifying the existence of a lawless black-ops group have no legal or constitutional authority to codify such an interpretation. So there's absolutely nothing "sanctioning" their actions, no authority who's said that it's a valid interpretation of the Charter. They're acting entirely on their own, answerable to no one. That makes them outlaws.

Again, Chris, I'm not referring to the UE Starfleet Charter Article 14 Section 31, but the UFP Charter in the Kirk 31 novel, Cloak, which specifically establishes "an autonomous investigative agency", etc.

An autonomous investigative agency is not the same thing as an agency that is answerable to no one and does whatever it wants. Section 31 the agency deliberately uses that section of the Charter as an excuse and a justification for its behavior, but its behavior is not actually legalized or authorized by it.

 

[Christopher]

^Indeed. Any argument that leads to the conclusion that the Federation charter would authorize an organization to assassinate the President of the Federation has got a pretty obvious fatal flaw in its logic.