Confederacy as Commentary on How Bad the Prime Universe Could Be
- Thread starter MikeReed013
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"Utopianism" is an outdated and impossible thought experiment, but don't let perfection be the enemy of "good enough", which is most of the UFP still really is in comparison to most of its Fascistic, Mercantile, or Theocratic rivals and neighbors in the local spiral arm of the Milky Way....
Especially when you see leadership problems in Starfleet.
A military (or paramilitary) institution will inevitably attract a disproportionate number of power seeking narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths.
I think it makes logical sense that there would be a clandestine organization within the Federation to protect against and counter those of other powers. Going by their portrayal in DS9 and Picard S3 I do think it's funny that they manage to be more secretive than the Tal Shiar (their existence isn't even widely known) while being more manipulative, ruthless, and dangerous than the Obsidian Order.
The 48th rule of acquisition - "The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife.", Quark's description of what a hungry humanity is capable of in The Siege of AR-558 - it's like the Ferengi know us better than we know ourselves.
It makes logical sense for the Federation to have intelligence agencies doing sneaky spy work, investigating threats. Starfleet officers go undercover on alien worlds all the time. Sisko infiltrated a Klingon space station in disguise and bombed a Maquis planet in the same season. And then a season later, when he heard about Section 31, his first reaction was 'We need to send a spy to infiltrate Sloan's group'.
DS9's Section 31 is where you end up when you fall off the moral tightrope that Sisko is walking and he recognises their danger immediately. I don't mind that Section 31 exists, they're just another Badmiral group, but if you buy into Star Trek's premise and its message at all, then they have to be rejected by society the moment they're dragged into the light, and ultimately proven to be unnecessary.
DS9's Section 31 is where you end up when you fall off the moral tightrope that Sisko is walking and he recognises their danger immediately. I don't mind that Section 31 exists, they're just another Badmiral group, but if you buy into Star Trek's premise and its message at all, then they have to be rejected by society the moment they're dragged into the light, and ultimately proven to be unnecessary.
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How evolved.
i just don't think they are unnecessary. a necessary evil at times. we saw in SNW's balance of terror sequel/prequel/remake that the correct, moral move is not always the one that leads to survival. I still would argue that the rest of starfleet's ignorance of what 31 is doing, is what LETS them have that moral high ground and arrogance. they truly have no idea, but it keeps them on the up and up, fighting the good fight, staying pure.
sisko is one bad day away from joining, no, leading 31. lol.
i agree.
and i'd argue that the confederacy is what you'd get if the claim that "section 31's extreme actions are necessary' is taken as actually true. because that's basically what the confederacy is, S31's extremism and xenophobia writ large.
Section 31 keeps themselves secret because despite their claims their actions generally end up as a negative for the federation, both in terms of visuals and in outcome. in both the short term and the long term. even their stuff in the dominion war was to the net deteriment of the federation. the changeling virus didn't really change how the war was progressing, the federation was already winning materially, and the changelings were already leaving most of the planning to the Vorta before getting infected. all the virus did was prevent them from being able to make public appearances. which they weren't prone to anyway. and the fact they were facing their own extinction just hardened their resolve to fight the federation, making a diplomatic ending even harder. Odo was able to pull it off by offering the cure, but S31 poisoned the well pretty thoroughly and made post-war relations between the federation and dominion that much harder. and their plots on romulus ended up souring relations between the romulans and federation (albeit not fatally), and the S31 plot actually risked a federation deep cover agent in the process.
The problem with this statement is that we're victims of selection bias. We have no idea how many of S31's actions may have had positive results because we've only seen a handful of their ops, and (mild shock!) the shows aren't going to show us the ones that end well for everyone.
Indeed. Not only that, but they are set up as antagonists towards the heroes so we will be biased against them further since we will naturally cheer on the main characters.
We honestly don't know the extend of Section 31's operations. All Deep Space Nine indicates is that leadership will "neither confirm nor deny" the existence or operations and that makes sense to a degree with covert operations that you don't want to tip off foreign powers with. Not only that, but how often is Starfleet shown to be operating intelligence assets? Usually it falls to main characters which makes no sense.
Also, while we might personally disapprove of S31's actions in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges", the apparent op itself does succeed, and having Koval on the Continuing Committee does seem to be, at least in that time and place, a win for the Federation. Similarly, if we assume Sloan's mission in "Inquisition" was simply to assess and possibly but not necessarilly recruit Bashir, then he succeeded there.
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