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Section 31

I think there is a book out there that said Section 31 was controlled by a computer. Maybe we will see it being brought down in current forum with KIrk making his first appearance on the show and talking it into destroying itself through a logic condrum it's can't handle. All he has to do is ask why a spy group would be walking around with badges that identify itself and soon you will see the Section 31computer fritz out and smoke coming out of it and the whole bit.

Jason
 
Considering how casual Pike talked about it with Georgiou makes me think that he doesn't know about the not so nice stuff they actually do.

That to the outside world they're just a bog standard military intelligence agency. Would also explain the badges.

Hiding in the open. I mentioned this in the trailer thread, but it reminds me of SHIELD in the MCU. SHIELD was the mask, while Hydra was doing their shady shit behind it.

Or the NSA and CIA in real life.
 
That's pretty much it. The writers wanted to do ethically questionably undercover spy-stuff in Star Trek. What spy agency has a name? Section 31. That's what they are gonna' use.

It was inevitable. Had TNG (or DS9) introduced a proper Federation spy agency with a name and faces (as in, actual actors acting as spies) and not just "Starfleet Intelligence" (which was only ever a source for exposition, never a plot thread), they would have used that. Since that never existed - and S31 actually was the first and only human spy agency introduced to Trek - it's now going to be "THE" spy agency onwards. Even if the original concept was 100% detrimental to this idea.

This. It was just too tempting to leave alone after it was introduced, which is a real shame.

I like the idea of Section 31 as a covert ops group WAY more than the crappy "we exist but nobody knows about us" secret society envisioned in DS9. It was one of the only elements of DS9 I thought was lame.

Glad ID and DSC are retconning the whole idea.

I feel the exact opposite - I feel the only way that section 31 can work in the Star Trek future is as a truly secret organisation that may or may not be just the delusions of Sloane. In that context, I enjoyed it, and the way it was used on DS9. Even if it existed, it was autonomous, under the radar and was presented as being wrong, even if certain individuals compromised themselves by playing along. When it was talked about, Ross removed his comm badge, signalling the separation of those values from the ones for which his uniform stood. Similar presentation, and visual, to Admiral Leyton, actually.

But as a legitimate arm of Starfleet with badges and ships and official visits to starships, it ceases to 'work' for me. It is so contrary to the 'Trek future' that I can't reconcile it in my brain. It undermines the entire principle that we can be better, and plays into the old violence-glorifying stereotype that peace, progress and the agonies of moral decision making are stupid naïve fictions that need to be propped up behind the scenes by hard people doing hard things. I've got little time for that attitude in my Star Trek.
 
I did like the idea that Section 31 was all in Sloane's head.
It's great, if you watch DS9's section 31 version only, you can imagine Sloane as this deeply manipulative sociopath who draws others into his delusions and his one man mission to "save" the Federation. Is Starfleet covering it up, or is there nothing to cover up? Starfleet's own responses start to play into the idea of a cover-up, but is that just confirmation bias on our heroes' parts?

But then ENT confirmed the real existence of s31 and it went downhill from there....
 
But as a legitimate arm of Starfleet with badges and ships and official visits to starships, it ceases to 'work' for me. It is so contrary to the 'Trek future' that I can't reconcile it in my brain
if they doing it the way I think they’re doing it, that can still work.

The official stuff is just all a cover story.
 
I did like the idea that Section 31 was all in Sloane's head.

It's great, if you watch DS9's section 31 version only, you can imagine Sloane as this deeply manipulative sociopath who draws others into his delusions and his one man mission to "save" the Federation. Is Starfleet covering it up, or is there nothing to cover up? Starfleet's own responses start to play into the idea of a cover-up, but is that just confirmation bias on our heroes' parts?

But then ENT confirmed the real existence of s31 and it went downhill from there....
I would have been fine with it all being in his head at the end, not sorry it ended up being true though, I think the Section 31 storylines in DS9 were very realistic, same goes for Garaks plan to bring the Romulans into the war.

Someone has to do the dirty jobs so that others can swan about the galaxy believing in pink clouds and rainbows, Garak knew what had to be done and made it happen, Section 31 operates in a very similar fashion.

Its also one of the reasons I enjoyed certain storylines in B5 so much, sometimes Star Trek felt a bit too clean and sterile to be believable.

I always thought that a Star Trek series focusing on multiple ships and varying ranks would give a more honest view of what the Federation is rather than focusing on the flagship or another quadrant entirely, DS9 tried it a few times and it worked quite well but wasn't followed through.
 
Someone has to do the dirty jobs so that others can swan about the galaxy believing in pink clouds and rainbows,
That's exactly the part I don't like - that very implication. Star Trek has maintained that someone doesn't need to do the dirty jobs. That the institutions of society can be above board, accountable, and driven by morality. Having something like section 31 undermines that fairly fatally because it says that it was always a naive fantasy. Picard is just blowing hot air, a pompous figurehead with no real power or real lesson to teach us. I find that quite sad.
 
Section 31 is a bylaw in the Starfleet Charter.

The organization's title came from the original Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31, which allowed for extraordinary measures to be taken in times of extreme threat. (ENT: "Divergence") At some point before 2151,

"Section 31" is an excuse for acting like a Romulan, more so than any one institution.

Point of order.

"Original Charter"?

Seems like we have a National Treasure situation on hands.

Although...

Everyone in Starfleet "today" swore an oath to uphold the "revised" Starfleet Charter, so it doesn't really matter what was said in a secret draft of the Starfleet Charter that no one knows about.
 
Section 31 may have started similar to Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar. But later on gone underground. I wouldn’t be surprised that is the intention of Kurtzman and his gang. He always talks about filling certain gaps in canon that really don’t need to be done (like Spock being different in TOS compared to the Cage, or why Spock never talked about his sister).

Sloan did say that S31 was part of the original Federation charter.
 
You know what I wonder about. What happened to the MACO"S from "Enterprise. " I assume they eventually were turned into the Starfleet Marines but I don't even think the Starfleet Marines were ever established as canon. Closest we got was those different looking uniforms like ones some wear in the DS9 ep where Jake and Bashir respond to a Klingon attack and work in a makeshift hospital and the "Siege at AR-78" or something like that.

Jason
 
Starfleet working for UESPA, would have a different charter than Starfleet working for the Federation. So maybe there isn't a secret charter that no one has read. Its all out there in the light of day in a musty old library?
 
Section 31 is a bylaw in the Starfleet Charter.



"Section 31" is an excuse for acting like a Romulan, more so than any one institution.

Point of order.

"Original Charter"?

Seems like we have a National Treasure situation on hands.

Although...

Everyone in Starfleet "today" swore an oath to uphold the "revised" Starfleet Charter, so it doesn't really matter what was said in a secret draft of the Starfleet Charter that no one knows about.

It must, literally, be in there somewhere, buried in a thousand pages of other legal nonsense that would make the Ferengi and the Sheliak quiver with excitement. But if you sign something without reading it, shame on you.
 
You know what I wonder about. What happened to the MACO"S from "Enterprise. " I assume they eventually were turned into the Starfleet Marines but I don't even think the Starfleet Marines were ever established as canon. Closest we got was those different looking uniforms like ones some wear in the DS9 ep where Jake and our Bashir respond to a Klingon attack and work in a makeshift hospital and the "Siege at AR-78" or something like that.

Jason
They were folded into Starfleet after the Romulan War, as per Beyond
 
I don't even think the Starfleet Marines were ever established as canon.
As canon? No. Behind the Scenes sources for TFF do refer to the guys in blue turtlenecks seen during the Nimbus III mission as Marines, but they weren't identified as such on screen.
Closest we got was those different looking uniforms like ones some wear in the DS9 ep where Jake and Bashir respond to a Klingon attack and work in a makeshift hospital and the "Siege at AR-78" or something like that.
Since those guys used naval ranks, they likely aren't Marines.
 
You know what I wonder about. What happened to the MACO"S from "Enterprise. " I assume they eventually were turned into the Starfleet Marines but I don't even think the Starfleet Marines were ever established as canon.

Don't forget COLONEL West from ST VI.
 
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Marines are soldiers that are taken somewhere by ship.

Following that inaccurate description to an extremity, that would mean that marines are not stationed anywhere (permanently). Not starbases, starships, moons, or planets.

They are dropped into the shit, and if any of them are still alive a month later, they get dropped into some new shit, after declaring victory.
 
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