Sloan faked his death...again

[Prax]

Credit for this idea goes to Major Grin's Youtube channel.

The idea is that section 31 never planned to wipe out the founders, as that would be counter intuitive to the goals of protecting the Federation, their ideals, their reputation, etc, and that the virus was created for the purpose of eliminating their ability to shapeshift. If this was the purpose, it was very smart, and eliminated the direct threat changelings posed as infiltrators on earth and elsewhere.

The 2nd part is that Sloan wanted Bashir to find the cure, so that once the Dominion was desperate enough, the Federation had something to bring them to surrender, rather than fighting to the bitter end.

Did Sloan give up the cure a little too easily? Was it really Sloan that died, or a replica, a clone, or was the whole thing another simulation? Could Sloan have pulled this off? It might give S31 a little too much power, but with all the amazing discoveries in the ST universe, what could they really be capable of? And it's certainly in keeping with the complicated and convoluted(but successful) ventures they've pulled off previously. Could Bashir really have outfoxed Sloan? He can't even outfox Garak.

 

[Tosk]

It seems like a lot of stretching just to legitimize the idea that genocide wasn't Section 31's goal. For my money, you'd need to justify that initial claim before the rest comes into play.

Also, if their goal was for Bashir to find out, why did they wait so long? How many millions of Federation citizens died in the years between infection and discovery?

 

[StarMan]

^Exactly. It was what it was. Section 31 epitomized "the ends justify the means". I can imagine it wasn't a decision they came to lightly. They knew damn well what they were doing. They obviously determined The Dominion would be unwavering in their efforts to impost their version of order on the AQ and - like The Borg - could not be reasoned with and presented a very serious threat to the survival of The Federation.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It’s plausible that maybe S31 would have bartered the cure for total surrender. But they would not have given it to an idealist who was planning to give it to Odo for free. They would have given it to a high ranking contact inside Starfleet they trusted such as Ross.

And Sloan being alive is a stretch. Unless they have some sort of mass cloning program. Sloan considered himself acceptable losses should it come down to that.

 

[Tenacity]

It seems like a lot of stretching just to legitimize the idea that genocide wasn't Section 31's goal.

Why create a cure then?

I think S31 would have been willing to destroy the Founder species if they proved completely intractable, but the existence of the cure proves that genocide wasn't the only goal.

Bargaining tool.

How many millions of Federation citizens died in the years between infection and discovery?

How many would have ultimately died if S31 did nothing, or didn't exist? The existence of the cure is sole reason the female Founder surrendered at Cardassia.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

@Tenacity

The cure was not sufficient for her to surrender. She also had to be convinced Starfleet would allow Odo to return with the cure and would not attempt genocidal retaliation.

If the disease did not exist, she would have surrendered based on that trust.

 

[Tosk]

Why create a cure then?

It seems to me that

A: It would be foolish not to, regardless of your intent.
B: A "cure" may just be a simple side effect of creating the problem in the first place. You know how to cause it, you know how to un-cause it.
C: Even if genocide was not their primary goal, a long game where they trust Bashir with doing what they want instead of just doing it themselves seems implausible.

How many would have ultimately died if S31 did nothing, or didn't exist?

I didn't say it to mean that Section 31 did the wrong thing or whatever, I mean that if their goal was surrender due to a cure for the disease, why the years-long ruse with Bashir maybe doing what they wanted instead of a shorter approach where far less people die if the cure is introduced earlier? If the goal was surrender to save themselves from dying, the cure could have been revealed years earlier and saved countless lives.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Why create a cure then?

To test how difficult to cure the disease was. It wouldn't be much of a weapon if the founders could get over it with chicken soup and bed rest.

 

[Tenacity]

If the disease did not exist, she would have surrendered based on that trust.

If the cure hadn't existed, Odo's personal assurance of no retaliation/conquest wouldn't have result in a surrender. The female founder needed a reason not to keep fighting.

It was the promise of the continuation of her species that made the female founder surrender.

It seems to me that

I don't think Bashir getting his hands on the cure was ever a major part of S31's plan.

 

[Tosk]

I don't think Bashir getting his hands on the cure was ever a major part of S31's plan.

Neither do I, but I am attempting to address the theory posed in the original post.

 

[Prax]

They gave Odo the virus years before the war, and it was during the crisis of the changeling infiltrators on earth. While the changelings already on earth may have been able to continue unimpeded, they quite effectively eliminated the threat of additional changelings infiltrating the Federation.

The Changeling that speaks to Sisko says "What if I told you there were only 4 changelings on the whole planet?" Odo may have infected him in that episode, and he might have carried it to the others. Or he could have been the only one.

The function of the virus was that it prevented the changelings from changing form. Killing probably wasn't the intent at that point, but removing the great threat that the abilities of the changelings posed.

I also think that the changelings that can take on perfect human form have specially trained for that purpose. I don't think just any f them can do it. There must be like a shapeshifter special forces.

As for letting Bashir get the cure, as convoluted as the idea is, that's basically how they used Bashir in the Inter Arma... episode. They tricked him into thinking he was doing something contrary or against s31, and counted on his naive idealism, when he actually was carrying out their goals. It was super convoluted, but worked out for them.

As for whether Sloan could have actually faked his death, I think about all the technology that we are introduced to throughout all the series, and what Sloan might have access to, and at least that part doesn't seem as far fetched.

 

[Tosk]

As for letting Bashir get the cure, as convoluted as the idea is, that's basically how they used Bashir in the Inter Arma... episode.

But there they introduced him to a situation and relied on how they predicted he would act to get the job done. If this theory is given any credence, they created the disease and then just hoped that Bashir would discover it some day. They didn't draw his attention to it or particularly help along the process.

Sloan in Inter Arma: "I just wanted to say thank you. [...] For being a decent human being. That's why we selected you in the first place, Doctor. We needed somebody who wanted to play the game, but who would only go so far. When the time came, you stood your ground. You did the right thing. You reached out to an enemy, you told her the truth, you tried to stop a murder. The Federation needs men like you, Doctor. Men of conscience, men of principle, men who can sleep at night. You're also the reason Section Thirty one exists. Someone has to protect men like you from a universe that doesn't share your sense of right and wrong."

But in Extreme Measures, Bashir uses illegal Romulan mind probes. Did they really assume he'd cross that line? And if they did, did they plan for Sloan to activate his suicide device? And if they did, did they assume Bashir could save him for long enough to "trick" him into finding the cure in Sloan's mind, but without him stumbling onto the truth about the situation? It seems insanely convoluted and risky, even for Section 31.

 

[Timo]

...As for the timing issue, introducing the cure as a blackmail tool could not have happened any sooner than it did. The Founders were not yet dying until the final months of the conflict, and the UFP lacked intel on them anyway so they couldn't launch the blackmail campaign yet lest the Founders slip from the noose by quarantining the infected ones.

Whether leaking the cure through Bashir (or some other suitable agent - the possibilities are endless there) was part of the plan is difficult to tell, but the timing isn't the bit that rules it out. It's not even a particularly complicated plot in the end. But if the idea is for the enemy to discover that there's this horrible disease but it "wasn't wrought upon them by the UFP who are the nice guys" and will merely be brought to an end by these nice Feds to whom the Founders ought to surrender for their sheer niceness... Then why not frame the Romulans? Blaming it on a covert UFP organization seems like a half-measure at best.

All the worse if S31 is an actually existing and active UFP organization, rather than something dusted off from the depths of history for the sole purpose of this deception. For the deception to work, the UFP now has to sacrifice this pawn. So again, why not sacrifice the Romulans instead?

Timo Saloniemi