OMG, I agree with Sonak!
What's your take on Section 31?
- Thread starter Danoz
- Start date
OMG, I agree with Sonak!
Really? How many times you planning on moving the goalposts in this discussion?
I don't think anyone is debating "war is bad", it's a terrible thing to be avoided if possible. Also, no one has debated that the U.S. hasn't made mistakes over the years.
But it's silly to say that all war should be avoided no matter the costs. That way leads to being overran and your way of life being exterminated. It's also silly to blame World War II on anyone other than Germany, since they essentially struck first blood in World War I by invading a neutral nation.
I'm also sure the South Koreans are pleased with the outcome of the Korean war. Considering that the other option was to live under a secretive communist regime. So I would count that as another conflict that we were involved in that was at least partially beneficial.
The Federation government does know about it. Or at least a lot of high ranking officials within it know about it. They just choose to ignore it and tolerate it, or sometimes even cooperate with it. And some of them are members themselves. S31 is a secret cabal within the Federation government.
I haven't moved anything. I gave you the Civil and Revolutionary war out of the goodness of my heart. You're the one who's now changing your argument for the third time: First one can have a mass of unused weapons as a deterrent and never use them, then that using them preemptively in your interests is right, and then that aggression should be avoided if possible. Pick one and stick with it.
Um, I think you yourself said war had many benefits.
Mmmm, middle school history. Not at high school level yet. WWII didn't start with the Arch Duke Ferdinand. It was a billowing mess of colonial empires dying to make war on each other over any excuse. It didn't matter who shot first. And even if it was all Germany's fault it's generally recognized that driving the country to total bankruptcy was not a good thing.
I'm so happy you brought up the Korean War! Again, middle school history level understanding. Most people don't know what the Korean War was about. Nor do they know that South Korea was a corrupt, repressive dictatorship until it's 6th attempt at real democracy in 1987. 40 years after the war. We saved South Korea's capitalism, not their freedom. And all this happened while American soldiers sat on their duffs haggling the price of prostitutes in the Itaewon district.
You could make the charge that separating the dissident freedom loving folks of the South from the authoritarian North made it so only the South benefited from the outspoken reformers. Kim Jung Il could have been the one ousted in 1987. You never know.
S31 doesn't call Fed ethics into question because it was specifically created to be secret from the Federation. The point of it is, some people who say they are part of the Federation actually don't believe in its stated ethics, and see themselves as "saving the Federation from itself." S31 stories are supposed to work through this conflict and come to some (hopefully not foregone) conclusion about who is right here.
However, I doubt Star Trek really has the guts to address this question rather than go for the Fed-is-right foregone-conclusion approach. DS9's ending strongly suggests that the Feds won that war through genocide. But that's just an artifact of sloppy writing, not the intended moral of the story.
Unless Star Trek writers are willing to take the chance that an honest exploration of the topic will lead to a pro-genocide stance, there's no point to exploring anything. There's nothing interesting about a foregone conclusion, and when you have to force the conclusion because the story won't naturally go there, it's just pathetic and dishonest.
They're kindda like the CIA and Soviet Union secret police. That's why America needs to get rid of the CIA.We shouldn't be spying on other nations, especially our allies, and trying to start wars in other countries, period! If what they are doing is so righteous, then why hide the truths. People lie because they know what they are doing is dishonest and wrong. If you haven't done anything wrong, why not just tell the truth and clear the whole mess up so there are no hard feelings? We need to learn to trust each other and have an opened communication and good dialogue, if peach is what you want.
um, was this post supposed to be a satirical take on this kind of a utopian world view?
Wow, I hope so. Otherwise, it's horrifyingly naive.
The Female Founder was simply being in character when she ordered the extermination of Cardassians. She had told Garak the Cardassians were "dead" several seasons before the finale, because they dared to attack the Founders homeworld. The Founders were consistently depicted as having contempt for solids, not valuing their lives, and reacting harshly to any perceived betrayal.
I was surprised the Female Founder didn't respond to being cured by Odo by ordering all remaining Jems to fight to the last man, and kill as many of the enemy as possible. That would have been consistent with how she had been depicted. There was no explanation why she should have suddenly done a 180 in her personality. Just because she was grateful for being cured? The Founders had shown no previous inclinations towards gratitude. And why should she be grateful for being cured of a disease inflicted on her by genocidal enemy, when she could wreak bloody vengeance on that same enemy?
You have a valid point, but the series didn't make that point. There was never any message from the writers that they wanted us to believe "genocide is an okay way to win a war." That's why I don't think the S31 plotline was honest and without honesty, what's the point? They're just straw men for the writers to knock down, even when the story is on the side of S31!
And come to think of it, S31 didn't win the war by genocide. The Prophets won the war because of, well who the fuck knows what they want. The Feds really won the war through sheer dumb luck.
That's the moral of the story: it doesn't matter what you do, whether you are good or evil, or smart or stupid. The only way you'll win is if the writers are on your side.
I said that war can be beneficial. Not that it has "many benefits".
Everything is right here in the thread.
You seem to have a hard time having a civil debate with those that disagree with you. You talk about "peace begets peace", yet when someone disagrees your the first to start tossing insults. Doesn't seem like your to far above us imperialists after all.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on the value of war.
The Federation government as a whole doesn't know about Section 31, only a select few know and all of them are in Starfleet. There's no evidence that the civilian Federation government knows about Section 31.
Semantics. And a point you've still yet to prove.
If you say so. But I never called you an imperialist. I said what was coming out of your mouth is imperialistic and jingoistic in the hopes that you'd understand what your words mean. If I was talking purely in terms of rhetoric with no real substance I'd want to be told too. But, believe me, you are very aggravating to speak to as well. You dodge questions and points and strawman your argument to suit you. And then, when you're done, you call foul. Sure, I'm glad to end this.
I think it's more than just a select few. Sisko says Starfleet Command didn't deny their existence in "Inquisition" so it seems Command as a whole is aware of their existence to some level. We also know there was a S31 man in the President's cabinet (and in the novels, the Presidents Chief of Staff is aware of them). Not exactly evidence but I think it would be impossible for high-ranking officials not to know. Especially after the virus become known and the Council voted to withhold the cure.
Exactly. Not only would Odo return to the Link, he would also bring the cure to the virus with him. Odo may have been willing to return and cure the Link anyway, Dominion surrendering or not, but it's questionable whether he would have been allowed.
Also, I think we're meant to understand that Odo transfering his experiences about his love for Kira and her love for him (something he couldn't have done the previous times he linked) played a part. Perhaps too sappy for some, but very much in the Trek spirit.
The Prophets just evened the odds. That would have meant nothing had the Feds and their allies not been able to defeat the Dominion forces already present in the AQ. The Feds won the war thanks to the Defiant destroying that sensor array and the ketracel white facility, the Klingons ariving in the nick of time to turn the tide of the SoA battle and allow the Defiant to break through, Kira and her resistance cell disabling DS9's weapons, Sisko and Garak tricking the Romulans to join the war, the Starfleeters outsmarting the orbital defences at Chintoka, Worf's mission to destroy those shipyards, the people at AR-558 holding the line, the Cardassians rebelling and providing the Feds with a Breen energy device and finally the entire Cardassian fleet turning on the Dominion. And all the other large and little hard-fought battles we never saw. Sure, they were very lucky that Sisko was the Prophets' Chosen One (though it's not just pure luck - one could say it was the Federations desire for exploration and Sisko's character that enabled Sisko to be the one to contact the Prophets first and become their Emissary) but there was much more to that victory than sheer dumb luck. And anyway, when your enemy is vastly numerically superior, you deserve some luck.And come to think of it, S31 didn't win the war by genocide. The Prophets won the war because of, well who the fuck knows what they want. The Feds really won the war through sheer dumb luck.
Also, people are blowing up S31's contribution to the victory out of proportion. I don't get why some people think the Allies wouldn't have won anyway. They clearly had the upper hand at the end (why else would the Dominion have chosen to withdraw back into Cardassia's borders?) and with the Cardassians joining them had the Dominion and Breen totally bottled up over Cardassia Prime.
Aside from the Prophets intervening, the key points that led to victory were the Romulans joining the war and the Cardassians rebelling.
The only thing the S31's virus may have helped is shortening the war. And that's only because the Dominion's situation became desperate due to losing the conflict militarilly. S31 must have offered the cure in exchange for surrender long before WYLB (otherwise, what's the point of infecting them in the first place? why wait for millions of your people to die? and practically win the war regardless of the virus?) and the Dominion must have refused. The effects of the Female Founder hypothetically dieing without the cure are unknown. The Dominion could have possibly continued fighting anyway. Or maybe they would have become even more resolved and go berserk in vengeance.
And maybe Odo just agreeing to return to the Link would have been enough for the Founder to stand down. While they still had a chance of winning, victory was obviously more important to the Dominion. But once all they could do is to delay the inevitable defeat?
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Yes, by all means let's credit Section 31 or the Founders for ending the Dominion war and not Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Remens and even Ben Sisko and his crew who fought the war on the front lines.
Sadly for the allied militaries, they didn't actually win the war and their efforts were all for naught. The wormhole aliens won the war by blocking the wormhole, for reasons of their own that seem related somehow to Ben Sisko, but not at all to what the Feds, Klingons, Dominion, et al wanted or were doing. Without that factor, the allies could very well have lost. So really, what did they accomplish except killing time?
S31's virus might get some credit for preventing the Female Founder from sending the Jems on a killing rampage because without the virus, she would not have been grateful to Odo for saving her, and uncharacteristically non-homidical as a result. But how could S31 predict she'd react that way? It would be more in character for her to order a killing rampage as punishment for the virus, regardless of whether Odo cured her. S31 dodged a bullet there.
So in the end, the allies won because the writers wanted them to. And S31's virus didn't result in disaster because the writers didn't want it to.
If Odo returning to the Link was so important, then why didn't she tell Odo during the time the Dominion occupied DS9 that if he's return to the Link, they'd stop the war? He hardly could have turned down that deal.
And if she stopped fighting because the war was obviously lost, the wormhole aliens get credit for that. The allies don't.
The wormhole aliens prevented reinforcements from arriving, and the Female Founder refrained from using the forces present in the AQ to wreak vengeance. Both are arbitrary ass-saves on the part of the DS9 writers. They didn't allow their protagonists to actually win the war, and I'm not convinced that they even realized what they were doing, considering the illogic they forced on the characters in order to get their plotline to work. One way or the other, S31's virus did help save lives, yet I doubt the writers wanted to send a pro-genocide message. And the Female Founder was forced to be totally out of character because the plotline wouldn't have worked otherwise.
The reason the allies won is because the wormhole aliens blocked the wormhole. The virus just prevented the Female Founder from killing a lot of people in the AQ. It would be completely in character for her to send the Jems on a murderous rampage when she realized the war was lost and they were trapped, and that certainly holds true if she thought her enemies were trying to commit genocide. So that part doesn't even make sense.
To summarize: the allies won through dumb luck. S31's virus didn't result in disaster, also because of dumb luck. Perhaps the larger message here is that war is a huge clusterfuck and dumb luck is always a big part of it.
That notion is rather horrifying because for S31 to do that, would reveal that people associated with the Federation were responsible for the virus, and the very likely response of the Dominion would be to go on a murderous rampage. The whole virus plotline makes no sense if we're assuming S31 understands the first frakking thing about Founder psychology. That S31 would do something so amazingly stupid and likely to result in disaster is the best argument against them. Their trouble is not that they are secret, or ruthless, but that they are incredibly stupid.
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First of all, terrible dress sense. How oblivious do you have to be to parade around in black leather and jackboots? Even in the 22nd century, they're wearing black like they don't know they're the creepy villains.
Yevetha
Commodore
Source?
Even if S31 is more realistic as to how humans behave, why should any literary work be wholly realistic? Abstract representations have room for licence, given their abstract nature.
Is, for example, the X-Men rubbish since it depicts characters with telekinetic powers, or who can form weather phenomena? What about comic book characters who when infused with yellow sun radiation can blow freeze breath, or fly? I just don't believe that any abstract work must be totally realistic.
Part of the attraction of some literary works is that fact that it is fantasy and set in an improbable universe. Most likely Roddenberry knew this, I doubt he was stupid, and decided to make the Federation utopian.
