Before Dishonour....seriously?!

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Is there a plan to tell the story (in novels of course) of the fall of Section 31? We know it happens, just not when or how.

And don't even try to tell me that's a "story idea" and therefore unusable.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Would Section 31 ever really fall? Wouldn't some concerned idiot just start it up again?

 

[MattWallace]

^Yup. Like Picard said in "The Drumhead," we must be ever vigilant in order to hold onto our morals. Any group without oversight and answerability will not remain moral indefinitely. If it answers to no one but itself, eventually its overriding priority will be justifying and protecting its own self-interest, no matter who else has to suffer.

Youe mean like when Sisko was working on bringing the Romulans into the Dominion War using falsified documents? (In the Pale Moonlight)

Do you think this was something that the Admiralty or the Federation was in favor of? is it something that they would support? Did Garak go too far by setting the bomb and implicating the Dominion or was he just a step or two ahead of where Sisko would be anyway?

What about the oversight of Picard, Ross, Nechayev, Paris, Jellico, Nakamura and Ambassador Serra in removing the democratically elected president of the Federation? Is that really the job of Starfleet, to decide who is and isn't the rightful leader of the Federation? Being forced to resign at gunpoint doesn't sound very free and open to me.

There were security reasons for keeping the reasons he left off secret but how do you justify 6 members of the military and an ambassador forcing out an elected official at gunpoint? It appears to me that Picard has changed his mind in the intervening years.

And what happens to the conspiritors? Well, a year later Jellico is CinC and Picard turns down a promotion to Admiral. Only Ross, the one who took part in the triple assassination even gets to resign. You'd think that Bacco could come up with something to charge him with while keeping the necessary parts secret. Just how much of a pension does a Starfleet admiral get anyway?

Let's not pretend that the Federations hands are lilly white all the time. They often do illegal things and even cover them up so that the perpatrators go unpunished. Picard can claim moral superiority when it suits him but he can be just as dirty as the rest of them.

 

[MattWallace]

Is there a plan to tell the story (in novels of course) of the fall of Section 31? We know it happens, just not when or how.

And don't even try to tell me that's a "story idea" and therefore unusable.

The Section 31 series had everyone, all the way back to Kirk, discovering the existence of Section 31 and vowing to bring them down. As far as we have seen, nothing has come of it.

Taking down Section 31 is like the War on Terror, or as Terry Jones of Monty Python said

"WHAT really alarms me about President Bush's "war on terrorism" is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? It's rather like bombing murder.

Imagine if Bush had said: "We're going to bomb murder wherever it lurks. We are going to seek out the murderers and the would-be murderers, and bomb any government that harbors murderers."

The other thing that worries me about Bush and Blair's "war on terrorism" is: how will they know when they've won it? With most wars, you can say you've won when the other side is either all dead or surrenders. But how is terrorism going to surrender?"

How do you get an entire secret organization to surrender? Some of them can simply go underground and pop up again later.

 

[Christopher]

Would Section 31 ever really fall? Wouldn't some concerned idiot just start it up again?

Heck, I think that's the only way it's managed to exist as long as it has. The idea of a vast conspiracy staying secret for generations is as fanciful as psychic powers or time travel, a fictional conceit or paranoid delusion that doesn't wash in the real world. The larger a conspiracy gets, the more lines of communication it has that can be intercepted and the more opportunities there are for its members to make mistakes that will compromise its secrecy. And the more people it has, the more likely it is that some of them will have second thoughts and decide to reveal what they know. And it couldn't last generations without new people coming in and replacing the old, and who's to say they'd share their predecessors' views or commitments? Sooner or later, something's got to give. Not to mention that in a democratic state with a free press, there are going to be a lot of people who have a vested interest in uprooting secrets and corruption, whether it's journalists seeking to make a name for themselves or politicians seeking to discredit their rivals.

So it's not credible that Section 31 is a large cabal that's managed to endure for centuries. It would have to be fairly small and not particularly active most of the time, and might even be a series of largely separate cabals that come and go. I can believe S31 being fairly active during the Dominion War or other times of great crisis, when certain people within Starfleet and the government might convince themselves it was necessary to tolerate their methods for the greater good (like Admiral Ross did). But in more peaceful and secure times, I don't think those same people would be as willing to look the other way, and S31 would pretty much have to suspend operations or dissolve outright during those periods.

Still, I'd like to think that eventually it would be exposed and its infrastructure dismantled to such a degree that there wouldn't be enough left of it to start up again. Eventually there might be some "concerned idiot" who'd try to organize a conspiracy like it, but it's not easy to pull off a successful conspiracy. It's unbelievable enough that S31 has managed to endure in any form for as long as it has, even intermittently. But assuming they have found some way of beating the odds and surviving as long as they have, even if they do so intermittently, it must be a tenuous survival at best, and it should be possible to break the streak eventually.

 

[MattWallace]

Would Section 31 ever really fall? Wouldn't some concerned idiot just start it up again?

Heck, I think that's the only way it's managed to exist as long as it has. The idea of a vast conspiracy staying secret for generations is as fanciful as psychic powers or time travel, a fictional conceit or paranoid delusion that doesn't wash in the real world. The larger a conspiracy gets, the more lines of communication it has that can be intercepted and the more opportunities there are for its members to make mistakes that will compromise its secrecy. And the more people it has, the more likely it is that some of them will have second thoughts and decide to reveal what they know. And it couldn't last generations without new people coming in and replacing the old, and who's to say they'd share their predecessors' views or commitments? Sooner or later, something's got to give. Not to mention that in a democratic state with a free press, there are going to be a lot of people who have a vested interest in uprooting secrets and corruption, whether it's journalists seeking to make a name for themselves or politicians seeking to discredit their rivals.

I agree that S31 should lay low most of the time. However, much like the Borg, they keep getting overused and some day someone will write the S31 version of Destiny, that is, taking them out of the game for good (or at least until someone decides to bring them back).

And I wouldn't worry too much about the Federation Press Corps figuring things out. Exactly ONE journalist figured out something had happened to Zif and his aides and they decided not to publish their findings. I think S31 is more likely to be brought down from within.

Which is too bad because, used sparingly, they could add a lot to a storyline. They've gotten to the point though that cries of "Section 31" pop up every time there's an evil Admiral or such.

Let's not forget that the Federation was close to losing the war and the Founders disease and the offer of a cure went a long way towards ending the war.

 

[JD]

^But the only reason that a cure was offered was because of Bashir and O'Brien, if they hadn't gotten the information then 31 would have just gone ahead let the virus run it's course. And like I said before, there is no justification for genocide, no matter what the reasons they have might be. IMO it's one of the very few black and white perspectives I can actually agree with.

 

[MattWallace]

How do you feel about Picard refusing to use Hugh to carry the virus to attack the Borg from within? Was it worth the death of 60 billion Federation, Klingon and other races? Not counting all those in the rest of the galaxy in the intervening years.

Just because Picard found individuality on one Borg, he left the rest of the Collective to kill and assimilate how many?

At least Picard could sleep at night knowing Hugh retained some individuality.

 

[Therin of Andor]

How do you feel about Picard refusing to use Hugh

And that's the point of the no-win scenario: Kobayashi Maru, Hugh of Borg, Tuvix.

 

[MattWallace]

How do you feel about Picard refusing to use Hugh

And that's the point of the no-win scenario: Kobayashi Maru, Hugh of Borg, Tuvix.

We don't know that Hugh was a no win situation since Picard didn't even try. He just decided that Hugh and the Borgs lives were worth more than the people they'd kill/assimilate.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

How do you feel about Picard refusing to use Hugh to carry the virus to attack the Borg from within? Was it worth the death of 60 billion Federation, Klingon and other races? Not counting all those in the rest of the galaxy in the intervening years.

Just because Picard found individuality on one Borg, he left the rest of the Collective to kill and assimilate how many?

At least Picard could sleep at night knowing Hugh retained some individuality.

Not only would it have been genocide to use the virus on Hugh, there was no guarantee it would even WORK.

 

[Therin of Andor]

We don't know that Hugh was a no win situation since Picard didn't even try.

The Kobayshi Maru is supposedly unwinnable because it doesn't matter whether you choose to save the stranded passengers (and get attacked/killed by Romulans for crossing the Neutral Zone, or at least cause intergalactic war for daring to cross it) or ignore the passengers and let them die, you'll have failed morally.

Infecting or not infecting Hugh has disastrous effects for thousands of innocent beings, no matter which side you decide to take.

Janeway either loses two beloved crewman or she kills Tuvix.

I see no difference. These are all no-win scenarios. You don't have to try a solution to realise that neither side is a victory.

 

[MattWallace]

And there's no guarantee that it wouldn't. Why are you opposed to even trying? Can the Federation do nothing against the Borg unless they are 100% sure that it will be successful? "Don't try to stop that cube from assimilating Earth. We don't know for sure that it'll work. And we don't want to kill the drones because Hugh showed us that it's possible they can be removed from the collective. Stand down everyone."

Yeah, that's a good strategy.

 

[TenLubak]

I remember this being a goofy fun book, I read it in Sept of 2008 when i had my new condo in Bel Air and was managing a kitchen up there. After 12 hours of hell a day, it was a super nice escape, but some of bs like eating pluto, top brass gambling, and the strange actions of characters gave me quite a few what the hell, and come on moments. I also had to re-read some passages to see if i had missed something as i recall some things not adding up correctly. Eh, it was okay i suppose. Two popcorns. I wish that Janeway would have died in a Voyager book however, that seemed wrong.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I wish that Janeway would have died in a Voyager book.

Well, she does. Halfway through "Full Circle".

 

[Therin of Andor]

And there's no guarantee that it wouldn't. Why are you opposed to even trying?

If you know you're about to commit genocide on the Borg, and you go ahead with it, you can't suddenly turn back. And you have lost your morality - by doing what your enemy has been doing.

 

[MattWallace]

Yes, much better to let the Borg assimilate and/or kill everyone. The Borg won't stop if you kill 10%, 25% even 50% of them. They'll keep fighting until they are all dead. Don't think of them as an army, think of them as an anthill. Or a lightning storm. You can stop most of the bolts but some are still going to start forest fires or hit people or your house.

The only way to stop the Borg is to stop them ALL. Do you have time to figure out how to do that when the cubes are popping throught the Azure Nebula every 30 seconds? Give me something that can stop them without out killing them and I'll use it. Lacking that, I'd settle for something that kills them all instead.

They started this long before they met humanity. If we have the chance to stop them we should take it. Worrying about how we feel about it is something we can concern ourself with after our loved ones are safe.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The only way to stop the Borg is to stop them ALL. Do you have time to figure out how to do that when the cubes are popping throught the Azure Nebula every 30 seconds? Give me something that can stop them without out killing them and I'll use it. Lacking that, I'd settle for something that kills them all instead.

Her on-going mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

 

[MattWallace]

Yup, and if they encouter a life form that is openly hostile towards all sentient life that doesn't mean not defending themselves.

Why do you think there's General Order 24? Why have an order authorizing such an action if you never intend to use it? That's not to say it will be used all the time but even a Captain cas order the destruction of all life on a planet without authorization from Starfleet.

 

[Therin of Andor]

even a Captain cas order the destruction of all life on a planet without authorization from Starfleet.

That's not the kind of stuff I want from watching Star Trek.