At least they spared us the nefarious laughter...
Spoilers Bonus scene from Season One Finale
- Thread starter David cgc
- Start date
At least they spared us the nefarious laughter...
Could be worse. Could just have random conspiracies because of an alien takeover.Section 31, the Star Trek version of the Illuminati
That's the thing though, section 31 looks like it's a hundred percent human.
I'm struggling but I really don't see this as a problem.
Are you saying your prefer an alien conspiracy over a human one?
I am saying that it seems that section 31 is fundamentally racist, or specist.
Feeds into my saying I maintain Section 31 will be showed in a negative light.
I once had an idea about Section 31 a long, long time ago -- meaning almost 20 years ago -- that I won't say because that will take us into right into TNZ territory. No, you won't get it out of me. I never even posted about my theory "back in the day". And I certainly won't now. BUT let's just say I've never not thought something was horribly wrong with Section 31 and I wouldn't put being fundamentally _____ist passed them.
I once had an idea about Section 31 a long, long time ago -- meaning almost 20 years ago -- that I won't say because that will take us into right into TNZ territory. No, you won't get it out of me. I never even posted about my theory "back in the day". And I certainly won't now. BUT let's just say I've never not thought something was horribly wrong with Section 31 and I wouldn't put being fundamentally _____ist passed them.
Last edited:
Terra Prime joins Starfleet. If you can't beat em, join em!
This will sound bad, but read the whole thing first. I think this is a good thing. I think that Section 31 being specist allows for them to be unsympathtic, non-heroic, and "evil" for story purposes.
As much as people complain about Star Trek Into Darkness, Kirk's speech at the end, his whole arc of rejecting "evil for evil" in the face of aggression, speaks volumes to even contemporary interpretations of Section 31. There are a lot of story opportunities and commentary opportunities to be explored, including the darker aspects of human nature.
Of course, there will the complaints that the writing staff "can't handle" such storytelling. And, they'll porbably mess it up. But, S31 is not the most horrible thing ever that DISCO could do.
So, maybe we give DISCO a chance? That's all I'm saying.
Going back to TOS. In "The Enemy Within", it shows how Kirk can't survive without his negative and positive side. Spock and McCoy both give arguments for the negative side. Spock says when properly controlled it can be a source of strength. Sometimes you have to make decisions or take actions you don't want to. Someone who fundamentally can't won't. But it also shows that the positive side is capable of facing fear whereas the negative side would give into it.
Section 31 is the negative side that exists and we wish didn't. And this ties back into what I said upthread about the concept of Yin-Yang. Nothing is ever fully one way or the other. Denial of a negative side accomplishes nothing. I'm not even talking about Star Trek now. Real life. You accomplish something by finding about what to do about the negative side, not by pretending it doesn't exist.
The real question is: which side is the dominant one? Which one is in control?
Section 31 is the negative side that exists and we wish didn't. And this ties back into what I said upthread about the concept of Yin-Yang. Nothing is ever fully one way or the other. Denial of a negative side accomplishes nothing. I'm not even talking about Star Trek now. Real life. You accomplish something by finding about what to do about the negative side, not by pretending it doesn't exist.
The real question is: which side is the dominant one? Which one is in control?
Last edited:
At this rate Section 31 is going to be responsible for the existence Mirror Universe or maybe over there they help old ladies across the road and give free sweets to children.
They definitely originated from Earth, Enterprise made that clear. And indeed, the novels imply Section 31 has origins which go back to the US military of the 1990s.
Well they evolved to the Federation.
At the risk of getting flamed, and since everyone else is afraid to say it, I'll take the bullet:
Star Trek has always included a certain amount of social/political commentary in its storylines, and Discovery is no different. They dabbled a bit with PTSD sexual assault with Voq's storyline (which, IMO, had just a few too many dimensions to really drive the point home) and with terrorism and extremism in "Lethe". Lorca's xenophobic rant in the Mirror Universe invokes much of the same and is a completely unsubtle stab at modern American politics, but in that case we can ignore it because he's in the mirror universe, whatever.
But Section 31 as the Brownshirts is strangely and terrifyingly fitting for the world in which Discovery is being released. When live in a time when social/ethnic scapegoating has become mainstream, where domestic terrorists are likely to be judged as much by their actions as by their intended targets, and where racist xenophobes organize openly and proudly and no longer have to push their agenda from the shadows.
So what if the subtext for Season 2 and/or Season 3 involve Section 31, horrified at the damage caused by the Klingons, decide that the Federation needs to radically change in order to survive and make sure this sort of thing never happens again? That they blame the logic extremists -- if not Vulcans in general -- for undermining the war effort and believe they must be purged from the Federation or dominated entirely?
Section 31s whole selling point is that they are willing to do whatever it takes, no matter how immoral or how dangerous, to preserve the Federation's freedom and quality of life. Are we really so naive as to think that they actually mean EVERYONE in the Federation, or just the ones they deem worthy of the gift?
Here's the other thing. It fits well for the current times in which the show is produced. We live in a day and age were government data collection, manipulation and monitoring are common place, where government spying is the norm, rather than "Big Brother" paranoia.
The idea that Section 31 somehow doesn't have a place in a current Star Trek show is laughable, at best.
