It would be nice having a mission arc on taking down Section 31
Taking down Section 31 would likely be impossible. They have no central command or leadership, they are a bunch of cells who don't even know who the other cells are, and they have been operating for well over 200 years at this point. You could very likely spend decades hunting down Section 31 cell by cell, and never be really sure you got them all as they would inevitably make more cells, recruit more members, and go even further underground then they are now.
In all honesty, you have a better chance of totally dismantling the Orion Syndicate then taking down Sec 31, and the Orion Syndicate is unlikely to go down in any foreseeable future.
Exactly.
Only way I could see "taking down" Section 31 being possible is convincing them to become an official black ops division of Starfleet Intelligence, which they sort seemed to be in DSC era.
In my personal headcanon, something happened between 2250s and "modern time" that caused Section 31 to become a rogue orginization with no connections to UFP goverment, well no sanctioned connections anyway (thus explaining the difference between section 31 in DSC and DS9).
They never were an organization with any connection to the UFP government. They were named after a provision of the United Earth Starfleet Charter, an organization which is defunct. In DS9 it's even shown that they're plotting a coup d'etat against the UFP: in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" the Chief of Starfleet Intelligence conveniently dies of "food poisoning" right around the time Section 31 is launching a major operation, then in "Extreme Measures" we learn they have an operative inside the Office of the President of the UFP.
Section 31 was never anything more than a "Federation uber Alles, humans uber Federation" extremist group that was occasionally marginally useful in the short term. This Section 31 storyline is a fascist fantasy brought on by post-9/11 militarism and writers with insufficient intelligence to consider that, hey! Luther Sloan is a frakking spy! He lies for a living! And it does not deserve to be legitimized by this game.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
There is nothing satisfying watching our heroes do terrible things, especially in Star Trek.
I believe you are confusing several points and thematic concepts here.
First, I do not believe we are meant to cheer with glee and jump for joy when Sisko betrayed his principles in "The Pale Moonlight" or (using your example) Superman had to kill Zod - in any incarnation of the event. We are not meant to feel good about it at all. I believe we are meant to feel that same punch to the gut and empathize with them in that they were left no other choice and did what they had to do. They are not proud of what they did, but ultimately their actions served the greater good.
Second, the Federation may be a utopia, however the rest of the universe clearly is not. We know there are enemies of the Federation out there who are utterly intractable and will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Some of them are not interested in bargaining, reason or diplomacy.
Lastly, look at the lessons learned from "Q, Who?". Picard arrogantly believed humanity and the Federation were ready for anything. Q gave him a little bloody nose to bring him back to reality. There very well could be species out there that make the Borg look like kittens by comparison.
Against enemies like these, at some point someone is going to have to get their hands dirty. It also makes perfect sense to be pro-active and monitor / deal with potential threats before they become an enormous issue.
So no, I do not believe we are meant to feel good when our heroes do terrible things. I believe we are meant to see that everything that is good and right comes with a price and those things are worth fighting for - even if it means doing things we are not proud of at times.
I don't have a problem with the notion that utopia needs guardians who sometimes have to do unkind things. I have a problem with the notion that in order to guard it, you need an unaccountable shadow government agency motivated by an ultranationalist ideology, especially when the "guys who do the necessary nasty" role is already covered by Starfleet and in particular Starfleet Intelligence.
Underhanded things Starfleet Intelligence does:
Research cloaking devices. Okay, it's an illegal act, but seriously, all they were doing was an R&D project on a technology the Federation already understands. And it's not like the Romulan Star Empire has any problem pushing the limits of its half of the treaty: for Prophets' sake, they tried to invade a Federation core planet during the same series. (An incompetent act of war is still an act of war.)
Send Miles O'Brien undercover to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate. I think we can pretty much all agree this is a good use of covert operations even if there hadn't turned out to be a Dominion connection.
The rest of their remit is mostly just the normal information-gathering and counterintelligence stuff that every government does.
Underhanded things Section 31 does:
Start witch hunts and disrupt the normal operations of a major allied forward operating base, as a recruiting tactic. ("Inquisition")
Use an officer of an allied nation as a typhoid Mary to deliver a biological weapon with the intent of genocide. (Odo/Changeling arc)
Frame a foreign elected official for treason, probably getting her shot, on the suspicion that she might stop liking you at some unknown point in a future that may or may not happen. ("Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges")
Plant operatives at high levels of the civilian government of your own country. That's suggestive of a planned coup d'etat. ("Extreme Measures")
Which is why Starfleet Intelligence exists, i.e. an openly acknowledged and therefore accountable organization that answers to the Federation's elected civilian government. As opposed to a rogue agency driven by a perverted ultranationalist (dare I say "fascist") take on the Federation, answerable only to its own whims. And even that wasn't easy to get into the show:
And it being accountable is exactly why its bad for the part of actually doing useful things outside the normal bounds of Federation ethics.
Yeah, "useful things" like disrupting the operations of a major forward operating base in time of war with a fake witch hunt so they can go on a recruitment drive, genocide (which one of us keeps accusing the other one of advocating war crimes again?), and the suggestion in DS9 that they're plotting a coup d'etat against the Federation government: the admiral in charge of Starfleet Intelligence conveniently dies of "food poisoning" (Sloan's words) right about the time S31 is undertaking a major operation (framing a pro-Federation Romulan senator for treason because she's operating from enlightened self-interest on behalf of her people rather than taking Federation bribes), and then we see when Bashir mind-probes Sloan that they have an agent in the Office of the President of the Federation.
Just what the bloody hell is the matter with our society right now? It seems like authoritarianism is all the rage these days and enlightened representative democracy is "so last century".
Which is why Starfleet Intelligence exists, i.e. an openly acknowledged and therefore accountable organization that answers to the Federation's elected civilian government. As opposed to a rogue agency driven by a perverted ultranationalist (dare I say "fascist") take on the Federation, answerable only to its own whims. And even that wasn't easy to get into the show:
And it being accountable is exactly why its bad for the part of actually doing useful things outside the normal bounds of Federation ethics.
so, what you're saying is, "The claimed ends justify the actual means"?
That's pretty much exactly how a fascist state operates.
"Oversight" doesn't mean total restriction from taking actions, (a lie promoted by shows like 24) it means there is accountability, it means your "Sekrit Intel agency" isn't taking over your Nation or controlling policy or enacting a shadowed tyranny in order to do "their job" more efficiently.
(because Tyranny is more efficient than the messy process of a representative democracy. That is the core of its attraction for a lot of people.)
Historically, the claimed ends almost never justify the means. They are used as "Justification". (also, Tyranny is only hypothetically more efficient, they're also one of the fastest ways for a government to become corrupt, bloated, and inefficient, as happened to the Soviet Union, and as happened with Germany in the period between 1938 and 1945.)
a "Rogue" agency is exactly that-it's out of control, such agencies tend to pose a larger threat to the nations they allege to protect, than any external enemy, because without being answerable there's a temptation to take power, and government agencies love nothing so much as growing their own power. (Just the public history of the Internal Revenue Service from 1913 to the present should point this out-without oversight, that agency would wield more actual power than Congress!)
to be legitimately a tool of a polity, an agency must be accountable.
to be accountable, it must have Oversight.
to have Oversight, it must be answerable to higher authority.
If the Federation Charter is the "Law of the land" for the United Federation of Planets, if it is the document that legitimizes the functions of the Federation? Then Section 31 is either a legitimate agency with oversight and accountable for its actions, or it is a rogue organization and a threat to the principles, and even very existence, of the United Federation of Planets.
it is either a tool of the State, or the Enemy of the State.
you are still missing it, because you're not understanding what the natural impact of such a public agency would have in practice, even in the Trek universe.
Star Trek isn't real life, nor does it work on the rules of real life, nor has it ever tried.
That's right, it's fiction, which means it has to make sense and be internally consistent, whereas real life doesn't and doesn't have to, and that in turn means, if you have something that deviates from 'realism' then it has to be explained.
S31 doesn't work as you imagine it, because it fits neither the universe it was shoved into (as you imagine the agency to be), nor reality.
simply put, you can't have an unrestricted intelligence agency for the Federation because of what the Federation is supposed to be.
The presence of such an agency 'breaks' the setting's rules-if it is truly unsupervised, (we see that the Rule of Natural Consequences applies IN SETTING on this topic, vis-a-vis the Tal'Shiar and their negative impact on the Romulan state.)
but it also breaks reality's rules because you presume it won't become the enemy of the very foundational elements of the United Federation of Planets-which no unrestrained agency has ever NOT done to a free society (or allegedly free society) when it becomes enacted.
it's one of those situations where you have to change the Federation, or you have to give up the fascist-wet-dream omnipotent agency that is answerable to no-one, or you break the setting and it loses what made it interesting in the first place.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
It would be nice having a mission arc on taking down Section 31
Taking down Section 31 would likely be impossible. They have no central command or leadership, they are a bunch of cells who don't even know who the other cells are, and they have been operating for well over 200 years at this point. You could very likely spend decades hunting down Section 31 cell by cell, and never be really sure you got them all as they would inevitably make more cells, recruit more members, and go even further underground then they are now.
In all honesty, you have a better chance of totally dismantling the Orion Syndicate then taking down Sec 31, and the Orion Syndicate is unlikely to go down in any foreseeable future.
Exactly.
Only way I could see "taking down" Section 31 being possible is convincing them to become an official black ops division of Starfleet Intelligence, which they sort seemed to be in DSC era.
In my personal headcanon, something happened between 2250s and "modern time" that caused Section 31 to become a rogue orginization with no connections to UFP goverment, well no sanctioned connections anyway (thus explaining the difference between section 31 in DSC and DS9).
They never were an organization with any connection to the UFP government. They were named after a provision of the United Earth Starfleet Charter, an organization which is defunct. In DS9 it's even shown that they're plotting a coup d'etat against the UFP: in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" the Chief of Starfleet Intelligence conveniently dies of "food poisoning" right around the time Section 31 is launching a major operation, then in "Extreme Measures" we learn they have an operative inside the Office of the President of the UFP.
Section 31 was never anything more than a "Federation uber Alles, humans uber Federation" extremist group that was occasionally marginally useful in the short term. This Section 31 storyline is a fascist fantasy brought on by post-9/11 militarism and writers with insufficient intelligence to consider that, hey! Luther Sloan is a frakking spy! He lies for a living! And it does not deserve to be legitimized by this game.
It's implied in DSC that in 2250s Section 31 had some degree of govermental oversight, how much we're not told but they're not fully rogue either. That said by the time of DS9 in the mid to late 24th century Section 31 back to being fully renegade with no govermental connections or oversight (well no legal ones anyway, I'm not discounting the possibility that some members of UFP goverment or Starfleet are bankrolling S31 in secret).
I'm not going to get political here, but Section 31 is evil. They're corrupt monsters with no morality to speak of and they constantly undermine and attack the one thing they're supposedly protecting.
That's the main thing I dislike about them (And the Terran Empire). They're antithetic to the basic concepts of Starfleet, the Federation, and Star Trek as a whole. I understand that a collected, suave individual clad in all black (occasionally sporting an eyepatch) that looks to be a mastermind on the surface sounds pretty cool, and heck, maybe they are, but it's the absolute worst thing the franchise could ever put in a heroic spotlight.
When was S31ever "put in a heroic spotlight"? Even in DSC S2, when it was revealed that some Starfleet personnel knew they existed, they were presented as evil - a necessary evil in the eyes of their agents, an unnecessary evil in the eyes of many others, but hardly the Good Guys, even secretly.
And given both the way Michelle Yeoh has been playing Phillippa and the nature of the universe all this is supposed to be leading into, I think it's likely the Georgiou show will be about her taking the entire place apart from the inside, not trying to show how they're really the "heroes".
That's the main thing I dislike about them (And the Terran Empire). They're antithetic to the basic concepts of Starfleet, the Federation, and Star Trek as a whole.
I think that was the point.
The thing is that in reality, not even the Federation can be this Idealistic Utopia where nothing is wrong. There are shadow elements in the background. And 99% of the time, whenever these shadow elements are revealed, they are opposed by Starfleet.
In Enterprise, Reed didn't want to be put in a position where he would have to choose between Section 31 and Captain Archer. Archer also felt that such an organization was inherrently dangerous.
In DS9, Section 31 is the ultimate "Ends justify the means" group hiding in the shadows with zero oversight from any government agency, and has agents within government agencies. Ultimately proving Archer's fears of them being dangerous. While they did help a bit with bringing an end to the Dominion War, they were willing to commit Genocide to do it. Something Starfleet wouldn't condone, and the crew of DS9 went to great lengths to prevent.
In Discovery, we see a Section 31 with some form of oversight, but we also see how integrated they made themselves. Ultimately we see a transition period here after Control's rampage. Hell... those events probably reaffirmed Section 31's belief in "the ends justify the means" in order to prevent a similar event, turning them into the organization we know in DS9.
We see events that are carried out by clandestine groups throughout Star Trek. Some could very well be Section 31. For example, the events of Star Trek 6, and the conspiracy to not only kill government officials and set up a war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, but to frame Kirk as well as an instigator, could have been a Section 31 op. We know that there were conspirators in the Federation and Starfleet, such as Valeris and Cartwright. They found people who don't want peace, like Chang, and got help from someone who might benefit from a war, like the Romulan Ambassador (a weakened or defeated Klingon Empire, along with a somewhat weakened Starfleet as a result, would be a boon to the Romulan Star Empire).
And it gets bigger if we go into the Novels. Even after death, a Section 31 agent threatened the USS Voyager because of an altered Gel Pack that triggered a secret protocol that tagged Seven of Nine as a threat to the Federation and must be killed, even threatening the lives of the crew and a ship they were trying to save from an impending natural disaster.
Section 31 was MEANT to be the shady, underbelly of the Federation. They were MEANT to show that nobody is perfect. The Terran Empire? Is basically the exact opposite of the Federation. Where the Federation is supposed to represent the best, the Terran Empire is supposed to represent the worst.
When was S31ever "put in a heroic spotlight"? Even in DSC S2, when it was revealed that some Starfleet personnel knew they existed, they were presented as evil - a necessary evil in the eyes of their agents, an unnecessary evil in the eyes of many others, but hardly the Good Guys, even secretly.
And given both the way Michelle Yeoh has been playing Phillippa and the nature of the universe all this is supposed to be leading into, I think it's likely the Georgiou show will be about her taking the entire place apart from the inside, not trying to show how they're really the "heroes".
My head canon is that Section 31 is not really independent of anything. They're Starfleet Intelligence. But the aggressive side that does things proactively. They don't just inform the admiralty, they aggressively seek out and destroy threats. Their methods are morally questionable for many reasons, one of them being that they don't have the resources to do things openly. So they have to use less... straightforward methods.
Is this a good thing? Well, that's dependent on what they're doing and why.
Comments
They never were an organization with any connection to the UFP government. They were named after a provision of the United Earth Starfleet Charter, an organization which is defunct. In DS9 it's even shown that they're plotting a coup d'etat against the UFP: in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" the Chief of Starfleet Intelligence conveniently dies of "food poisoning" right around the time Section 31 is launching a major operation, then in "Extreme Measures" we learn they have an operative inside the Office of the President of the UFP.
Section 31 was never anything more than a "Federation uber Alles, humans uber Federation" extremist group that was occasionally marginally useful in the short term. This Section 31 storyline is a fascist fantasy brought on by post-9/11 militarism and writers with insufficient intelligence to consider that, hey! Luther Sloan is a frakking spy! He lies for a living! And it does not deserve to be legitimized by this game.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
It's implied in DSC that in 2250s Section 31 had some degree of govermental oversight, how much we're not told but they're not fully rogue either. That said by the time of DS9 in the mid to late 24th century Section 31 back to being fully renegade with no govermental connections or oversight (well no legal ones anyway, I'm not discounting the possibility that some members of UFP goverment or Starfleet are bankrolling S31 in secret).
That's the main thing I dislike about them (And the Terran Empire). They're antithetic to the basic concepts of Starfleet, the Federation, and Star Trek as a whole. I understand that a collected, suave individual clad in all black (occasionally sporting an eyepatch) that looks to be a mastermind on the surface sounds pretty cool, and heck, maybe they are, but it's the absolute worst thing the franchise could ever put in a heroic spotlight.
And given both the way Michelle Yeoh has been playing Phillippa and the nature of the universe all this is supposed to be leading into, I think it's likely the Georgiou show will be about her taking the entire place apart from the inside, not trying to show how they're really the "heroes".
I think that was the point.
The thing is that in reality, not even the Federation can be this Idealistic Utopia where nothing is wrong. There are shadow elements in the background. And 99% of the time, whenever these shadow elements are revealed, they are opposed by Starfleet.
We see events that are carried out by clandestine groups throughout Star Trek. Some could very well be Section 31. For example, the events of Star Trek 6, and the conspiracy to not only kill government officials and set up a war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, but to frame Kirk as well as an instigator, could have been a Section 31 op. We know that there were conspirators in the Federation and Starfleet, such as Valeris and Cartwright. They found people who don't want peace, like Chang, and got help from someone who might benefit from a war, like the Romulan Ambassador (a weakened or defeated Klingon Empire, along with a somewhat weakened Starfleet as a result, would be a boon to the Romulan Star Empire).
And it gets bigger if we go into the Novels. Even after death, a Section 31 agent threatened the USS Voyager because of an altered Gel Pack that triggered a secret protocol that tagged Seven of Nine as a threat to the Federation and must be killed, even threatening the lives of the crew and a ship they were trying to save from an impending natural disaster.
Section 31 was MEANT to be the shady, underbelly of the Federation. They were MEANT to show that nobody is perfect. The Terran Empire? Is basically the exact opposite of the Federation. Where the Federation is supposed to represent the best, the Terran Empire is supposed to represent the worst.
Is this a good thing? Well, that's dependent on what they're doing and why.
My character Tsin'xing