Anyone else dislike Section 31?
- Thread starter TheLobes
- Start date
First off, Section 31 does not challenge the notion of what the Federation is all about because they are a criminal organization! That would be like saying the Mafia challenges the notion of what the United States is all about just because the Mafia is a secretive band of thugs and killers. Also, do we even know if the whole Founder plague was effective? The Female Changeling surrendered not because of the virus but because Odo showed her the Federation would show the Dominion mercy and wouldn't be vindictive. If anything, Section 31 damn near jeopardized that. Just because they claim to be fighting for the Federation's best interests doesn't mean they're right.
^I don't know, I'm pretty sure the Female Founder wouldn't have surrendered without Odo promising to return to the GQ -and- cure the Founders.
Given the Dominion's own history with biological warfare, on some level I imagine they actually respected that S31 was willing to stoop to such tactics.
Given the Dominion's own history with biological warfare, on some level I imagine they actually respected that S31 was willing to stoop to such tactics.
Yes. It was stupid. Now it's dead and best forgotten.
Data: "Although i acted in the best interests of the fleet, the ends do not justify the means."
Picard: "Yes Data you're right, they do not."
I know for a fact that Picard would not approve of this at all, he would be vehemently opposed to it. He would say that Section 31 goes against everything the Federation stands for. I think it's very similar in a way to his reaction to the conspiracy hearings on the Enterprise when he says "when you start down this path, where does it end?"
Section 31 disagrees and feels that the ends DO justify the means. But rarely in Star Trek do we ever see this kind of ultimate no options situation. I like to think of S31 more as a way for the writers to really get dark and dirty and also show how the characters can have their own morality challenged. Not everyone is as stoic in their beliefs as Picard.
Picard: "Yes Data you're right, they do not."
I know for a fact that Picard would not approve of this at all, he would be vehemently opposed to it. He would say that Section 31 goes against everything the Federation stands for. I think it's very similar in a way to his reaction to the conspiracy hearings on the Enterprise when he says "when you start down this path, where does it end?"
Section 31 disagrees and feels that the ends DO justify the means. But rarely in Star Trek do we ever see this kind of ultimate no options situation. I like to think of S31 more as a way for the writers to really get dark and dirty and also show how the characters can have their own morality challenged. Not everyone is as stoic in their beliefs as Picard.
Yeah, ironically, if they'd shown the work of S31 as being done by a secret group of Starfleet admirals or Starfleet Intelligence it would have made a lot more sense for the theme they were going for of a "darker Federation." They wanted to have their cake and eat it too-"look, they cross the line in what they do! Oh but wait, they're actually a rogue criminal organization because we were too scared to have SI do these things."
Me, too!
They were supposed to be morally dodgy, and pretty vilainous, but also not your usual har-har we're so evulz organisation. Like everything else in DS9 (except for series 7 Dukat), Section 31 was like that: it gave you room for discussion, to defend or condemn it, because good, like the truth, is in the eye of the beholder.
Besides, you could hardly portray the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar as ruthless and terrible, but then make Section 31 look all righteous and shiny. It would have been pretty hypocritical.
I think that if all big governments have intelligence agencies (that are not part of the military, mind), it would be naive to believe that the Feds don't, despite their smug, superior, holier-than-thou goody-two-shoes mentality.
Me, too!
They were supposed to be morally dodgy, and pretty vilainous, but also not your usual har-har we're so evulz organisation. Like everything else in DS9 (except for series 7 Dukat), Section 31 was like that: it gave you room for discussion, to defend or condemn it, because good, like the truth, is in the eye of the beholder.
Besides, you could hardly portray the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar as ruthless and terrible, but then make Section 31 look all righteous and shiny. It would have been pretty hypocritical.
I think that if all big governments have intelligence agencies (that are not part of the military, mind), it would be naive to believe that the Feds don't, despite their smug, superior, holier-than-thou goody-two-shoes mentality.
Well, on paper, the Federation's leadership doesn't even know that Section 31 is even helping them out. So yeah, they're smug and superior, but they're also ignorant about this sort of thing, too.
The fact that Vince has nothing to do with the Pah'Wraiths or anything is exactly my point. There so many things in there to spilt up the characters and story, so everything got messed up. While it is possible to have arcs co-existing, you have to be careful. If you look at NuBSG, there are lots of arcs at the same time, but it seems like they have been planned, they tend to build well and then come to a thought out and interesting climax. They are never forgotten, but they are never overdone. Not true with DS9.
In TNG/TOS the battles actually matched what was going on in the ship, Kirk or Picard would order phasers fired and they would fire them. In DS9 Sisko can say 'Commander, initiate Beta defense plan' (or whatever) in the same time it takes for the Defiant to destroy seven ships and traverse the entire battlefield. The sense of urgency seen outside the ship is never matched inside the ship.
Sorry, to bring us off topic...
I love the concept of Section 31. They're pretty much the best intelligence agency we see in Trek. The Tal Shiar are sloppy. The Obsidian Order was great, but allowed themselves to be tricked into their own destruction. 31 on the other hand is so badass that 99.9% of people in the Federation don't even know they exist.
31's portrayal in Inquisition and Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges was masterfully done. The ball was dropped with Extreme Measures. To this day, that episode just feels wrong. Would have been better to let the series wrap with that particular story still open.
31's portrayal in Inquisition and Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges was masterfully done. The ball was dropped with Extreme Measures. To this day, that episode just feels wrong. Would have been better to let the series wrap with that particular story still open.
Eye of the beholder, and with that said I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree (in that, while I think the separation of arcs was handled well, the execution of those arcs is something else). But I'd chalk that up to DS9's cast constantly growing, which isn't a bad thing at all. No Trek show had grown on that scale before or since, and it's no secret why DS9 is considered to have the strongest secondary cast because of it.
This I'd have to call out, because there were times when we did see TOS/TNG ship battles take place sometimes offscreen, or in piecemeal (say, if Picard was separated from the ship and the story would divide focus between him and the ship). The final battle in TUC is a good example: the action alternated between the ships and the assassination plot, but it's clear that time passes. It depends on how the battles serve story function. Battles with more urgency (as you put it) are going to play out differently than a battle in the teaser. If it's war, you'll expect to see more battles in general, but we can compare a routine patrol to, say, the Defiant about to get destroyed if not for the Klingons. In the former, you'll see Sisko calmly call out a seemingly generic order (Beta Pattern Whatsitz), but in the latter, you'll see much more input by the crew, more worry from Garak and Nog, and more yelling by Sisko.In TNG/TOS the battles actually matched what was going on in the ship, Kirk or Picard would order phasers fired and they would fire them. In DS9 Sisko can say 'Commander, initiate Beta defense plan' (or whatever) in the same time it takes for the Defiant to destroy seven ships and traverse the entire battlefield. The sense of urgency seen outside the ship is never matched inside the ship.
Sorry, to bring us off topic...
But I also feel like you're unfairly attributing something to DS9 that happened across all the shows, and I also feel like you're complaining about -- but not really acknowledging -- the evolution of how battles were run on Trek. It was a common complaint that Trek battles were more talky than showy, that you'd see a single phaser blast outside, but inside the captain would order other attacks or maneuvers yet our only confirmation was dialogue, not action, moves that the viewer wishes they could see. Tell, don't show, as it were. At least in writing fiction, one should focus on the opposite: Show, Don't Tell, wherever possible.
As technology and special FX advance, we'd have to expect changes in how story is told. Picard didn't tell Worf to fire an exact amount of torpedoes or to use an exact pattern when they fought the Maquis fighters, he simply said do it, and Worf did it. That's fine, but had that battle taken place only a couple seasons earlier, I doubt we'd get to see such dynamics and energy in a battle that takes place in the first half of the episode.
Let's face it, there's perhaps more urgency in the bridge of TOS-E than outside because they had to make up for the fact that firing one phaser blast cost a lot of money. But TWOK there was certainly urgency in their battles, but a heck of a lot more phaser blasting to match -- how much urgency would TWOK really have if all we saw were a couple of phaser blasts only? (as a side note, quite a number of critics complained that TMP was mostly the audience watching our heroes watching the viewscreen -- not a lot of urgency there, despite keeping focus on the internal and not the external). I'd also say you're perhaps attributing DS9's supposed lack of internal urgency to routine battles in the war, when they really would fight a few ships and Sisko would disinterestedly call out orders because it was routine, but those battles usually took place in the first half of the episode. Compare that to episodes where major battles were the climax, or even the episode where Kor, Martok, and Worf go on a strike mission, or cadets in battle, and there'll be a lot more urgency because those are points in the arc that aren't routine; you'll have Sisko give a grave order to abandon the ship/station, or Kira in disbelief, or Klingons singing of an old man's sacrifice, or an entire crew of kids lost before our very eyes -- in other words, things you wouldn't see in routine wartime patrol skirmishes where the Defiant is involved.
Not every battle in TOS/TNG was meant to be climactic or urgent, and those battles serve simply to move the story forward (the viewer joins Kirk in the middle of the Gorn chase, but that's not really riveting or important at all, nor is it why the episode is legendary, is it?); we should expect the same from the other shows because purposes change. The urgency or quality of the battle depends on context and why there's a battle in the first place. Lastly (and finally, my apologies for the length), there are things to complain about in DS9, but this is the first time I've ever seen anyone complain about its battles -- it seems like an odd complaint compared to, say, Dukat's character arc in the 7th season or the way the writers handled Worf (or the Section 31 miniarc, for that matter).
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Me, too!
They were supposed to be morally dodgy, and pretty vilainous, but also not your usual har-har we're so evulz organisation. Like everything else in DS9 (except for series 7 Dukat), Section 31 was like that: it gave you room for discussion, to defend or condemn it, because good, like the truth, is in the eye of the beholder.
Besides, you could hardly portray the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar as ruthless and terrible, but then make Section 31 look all righteous and shiny. It would have been pretty hypocritical.
I think that if all big governments have intelligence agencies (that are not part of the military, mind), it would be naive to believe that the Feds don't, despite their smug, superior, holier-than-thou goody-two-shoes mentality.
Well, on paper, the Federation's leadership doesn't even know that Section 31 is even helping them out. So yeah, they're smug and superior, but they're also ignorant about this sort of thing, too.
That's true. In theory.
At least the Romulans and Cardassians publicly acknowledge their intelligence agencies.
That's what I said.
I was concerned at first, as the concept seemed a little off. Section 31 was a shady organisation with the Federation's best interests at heart, and is perhaps a bit too dark for the pleasant, forward thinking attitude that we'd been used to for so many years.
The planned Founder genocide perhaps went a bit too far, but then I suppose that war would bring the worst out of such a dodgy lot. I suppose the writers' point was that with people like Bashir and O'Brien fighting against the people who are supposedly saving them, then Section 31 will not prosper.
Or, being as they've existed since ENT at least, they will prosper, but at least be compromised.
Despite all of this though, the execution of them was very well done, and they're one of my favourite aspects of DS9. I just wish, like everyone else, that Extreme Measures had been a better episode to close their storyline on.
The planned Founder genocide perhaps went a bit too far, but then I suppose that war would bring the worst out of such a dodgy lot. I suppose the writers' point was that with people like Bashir and O'Brien fighting against the people who are supposedly saving them, then Section 31 will not prosper.
Or, being as they've existed since ENT at least, they will prosper, but at least be compromised.
Despite all of this though, the execution of them was very well done, and they're one of my favourite aspects of DS9. I just wish, like everyone else, that Extreme Measures had been a better episode to close their storyline on.
That's typical human though: all goody-two-shoes as long as on the surface, all is well. Humans will not abandon their ruthless survival instincts in a couple centuries, it's just not going to happen. I love it how several alien species call the Feds' bullshit on their so-called "superior morality", among them, of course, Cardassians.
Does anyone play Mass Effect? If so, the group reminds me of Cerberus.
But yeah, I think an important thing to understand about Section 31 is that they shouldn't be treated as Starfleet Intelligence. They're a terrorist organization with about as much legitimacy as any real life militia. Yeah, they cloak themselves in patriotism to the Federation but at the end of the day, they're just a bunch of guys who think they know what's best for the group.
They're also acting illegally with no knowledge from the higher-ups. They're closer to SPECTRE than the CIA. You lose a lot from what Section 31 is supposed to be ABOUT when you stop thinking of them as a terrorist organization.
Honestly, I think DS9 sort of fumbled the ball with Section 31 but they did it in a nicely oddball way. They set it up so Section 31 is pretty much dressed as a bunch of Neo-Nazis and fascists in the Utopian Federation but they also made it clear that the S31 folk had a more practical viewpoint towards a lot of the problems our heroes face. It's one of the few times that moral ambiguity worked in Star Trek (and as usual, it was in DS9).
Bizarrely, I think that I'd enjoy a more "realist" view of the Federation with Starfleet Intelligence as well as Starfleet in general. Picard and Janeway are actually pretty far removed from Sisko and Kirk. Part of Kirk's charm was that the Federation often was blundering through a pretty dire galaxy.
"Captain's Log: Today we visited a planet of people engaged in nuclear war where they voluntary went to disintegration booths. They murdered a previous Starfleet vessel's crew that wandered in. I got them to make peace by threatening to kill every last person on their stinking planet and blowing up their defense network."
But yeah, I think an important thing to understand about Section 31 is that they shouldn't be treated as Starfleet Intelligence. They're a terrorist organization with about as much legitimacy as any real life militia. Yeah, they cloak themselves in patriotism to the Federation but at the end of the day, they're just a bunch of guys who think they know what's best for the group.
They're also acting illegally with no knowledge from the higher-ups. They're closer to SPECTRE than the CIA. You lose a lot from what Section 31 is supposed to be ABOUT when you stop thinking of them as a terrorist organization.
Honestly, I think DS9 sort of fumbled the ball with Section 31 but they did it in a nicely oddball way. They set it up so Section 31 is pretty much dressed as a bunch of Neo-Nazis and fascists in the Utopian Federation but they also made it clear that the S31 folk had a more practical viewpoint towards a lot of the problems our heroes face. It's one of the few times that moral ambiguity worked in Star Trek (and as usual, it was in DS9).
Bizarrely, I think that I'd enjoy a more "realist" view of the Federation with Starfleet Intelligence as well as Starfleet in general. Picard and Janeway are actually pretty far removed from Sisko and Kirk. Part of Kirk's charm was that the Federation often was blundering through a pretty dire galaxy.
"Captain's Log: Today we visited a planet of people engaged in nuclear war where they voluntary went to disintegration booths. They murdered a previous Starfleet vessel's crew that wandered in. I got them to make peace by threatening to kill every last person on their stinking planet and blowing up their defense network."
'the pot calls the kettle black'
Cardassians should take a look at themselves. They calling anyone else arrogant/variations on this theme is hilarious, considering their manifest racism.
But, of course, they're not alone. Romulans, Tholians, Klingons - the Federation is BY FAR the most humble local power.
S
suncrafter
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I personally loved the idea of Section 31. It is also very realistic... The U.K. has MI6. The U.S.A. has the CIA.
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