One of the things to consider is that the Empress is used to people backstabbing here. And while Section 31 are not the good guys in my eye, I don't think that backstabbing their own agents is the standard operating procedure.
At some point Georgiou might realize that she is not looking at her back when together with her crew, and in fact that the people she works with can be trusted.
A traumatic experience could potentially be when she assumes standard Mirrorverse protocols and believes someone betrayed her or is about to and she takes him out - only to realize that he was on her side and she screwed things up because she didn't trust him.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
What will be different is that the Federation will be striving to follow the ideals as set forth in the charter rather than paying them lip service and doing 'what has to be done' behind the scenes. This is a cop-out, and it makes the Federation Charter a lie.
Section 31 is an autonomous unit. What they do has no reflection on the actions of the Federation itself. Nor does it make the charter a lie... since its the charter ITSELF that Section 31 stems from.
The Federation isn't stupid. It has ideals, it strives for those ideals, but it also knows that the universe isn't built on ideals, and that not everyone has the same ideals as you. This leads to situations that can't be solved within the Federations narrow set of ideals, and there being some group willing to work around them, rather than inside them, is an understood likelihood.
I understand this philosophy. It is what I wholeheartedly disagree with.
The ends do not justify the means, but the means do define the person using them. It is better to die a martyr than to denounce the faith of a lifetime for one more day of life, and that applies to a person, a nation, or a Federation.
Trek is a work of fiction, like any other work of fiction, it does not have special rules, and it is not special. Trek is no different in any way from any other franchise and people need to stop acting like it was created for any reason other than makong money and getting Gene laid Weinstein style (seriously if metoo started in the 60s Gene would have been the first to fall).
Again, this is not what I'm arguing at all, and is totally beside the point. If, in my fiction, I say all starships have to be pink, then proceed to tell a story about a green starship, I have some serious explaining to do. In Trek we are told humanity has evolved, and yet we see them doing the exact same TRIBBLE that screwed up our century. That might make for good drama, and it might make for good science fiction, but it is a green starship in a pink starship universe. It makes the premise of the setting a lie.
And it's not a case of absolute lack of conflict. That misinterpretation is common, but it would indeed make for very boring stories. Conflict is the basis of storytelling; without it we have a news report at best. It should be about solutions which do not involve killing everything in sight and saying, "We had to do it, but tomorrow we'll be better."
What will be different is that the Federation will be striving to follow the ideals as set forth in the charter rather than paying them lip service and doing 'what has to be done' behind the scenes. This is a cop-out, and it makes the Federation Charter a lie.
Section 31 is an autonomous unit. What they do has no reflection on the actions of the Federation itself.
They claim to act in the Federation's interests, therefore their actions reflect on the Federation when they become known to others.
Odo. Interesting, isn't it? The Federation claims to abhor Section 31's tactics, but when they need the dirty work done, they look the other way. It's a tidy little arrangement, wouldn't you say?
Remember that old Benjamin Franklin line: "Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead." Secrets have a way of getting out, it's real inconvenient.
Harris. Reread the Charter, Article 14, Section 31. There are a few lines that make allowances for bending the rules during times of extraordinary threat. Archer. What threat? Harris. Take your pick. Earth's got a lot of enemies.
The Federation isn't stupid. It has ideals, it strives for those ideals, but it also knows that the universe isn't built on ideals, and that not everyone has the same ideals as you. This leads to situations that can't be solved within the Federations narrow set of ideals, and there being some group willing to work around them, rather than inside them, is an understood likelihood.
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:
There was a time when you couldn't even mention Starfleet Intelligence on the show – and I kept sneaking it into scripts – and finally people sort of stopped caring. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)
"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"
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".
"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"
Harris. Reread the Charter, Article 14, Section 31. There are a few lines that make allowances for bending the rules during times of extraordinary threat. Archer. What threat? Harris. Take your pick. Earth's got a lot of enemies.
Unless we see the actual Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31, then there is nothing in there that warrants a completely autonomous and unethical organization devoted to protect the Federation at any cost. After all, Archer, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Janeway has followed Article 14, Section 31 to bend the rules during times of extraordinary threat. Also, Section 31 doesn't bend the rules, but completely ignores them.
so, what you're saying is, "The claimed ends justify the actual means"?
From a personal standpoint? No.
From the standpoint of why they would very likely exist in Star Trek, to them, yes.
Perhaps you should watch the Season One finale of DSC. Burnham rather succinctly disassembles that one, using her own personal experience as a guide. ("I did the same thing a year ago. And I was wrong.")
Harris. Reread the Charter, Article 14, Section 31. There are a few lines that make allowances for bending the rules during times of extraordinary threat. Archer. What threat? Harris. Take your pick. Earth's got a lot of enemies.
Unless we see the actual Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31, then there is nothing in there that warrants a completely autonomous and unethical organization devoted to protect the Federation at any cost. After all, Archer, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Janeway has followed Article 14, Section 31 to bend the rules during times of extraordinary threat. Also, Section 31 doesn't bend the rules, but completely ignores them.
Yeah, that's kind of my point, Starkaos. Section 31 uses the UE Starfleet Charter (not even the Federation Starfleet Charter) as a fig leaf for its actions. It's a pretext no less than Gowron's p**sing and moaning in 2372 about how Teh Evul Alienz must have infiltrated Cardassia because pro-democracy activists can't possibly have overthrown a dictatorship themselves.
so, what you're saying is, "The claimed ends justify the actual means"?
From a personal standpoint? No.
From the standpoint of why they would very likely exist in Star Trek, to them, yes.
Perhaps you should watch the Season One finale of DSC. Burnham rather succinctly disassembles that one, using her own personal experience as a guide. ("I did the same thing a year ago. And I was wrong.")
That and the actual Section 31 story arc in DS9: peace with the Dominion comes not because Section 31 achieved their goal of wiping out the changeling species, but because Odo, on behalf of the Federation, traded mercy for a Dominion surrender.
"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"
That and the actual Section 31 story arc in DS9: peace with the Dominion comes not because Section 31 achieved their goal of wiping out the changeling species, but because Odo, on behalf of the Federation, traded mercy for a Dominion surrender.
And that act of mercy couldn't have happened without Section 31's actions. Had Section 31 not infected the Changelings with the virus in the first place, Odo couldn't have traded the cure for surrender. Meaning the war would have gone on, the Dominion would have sent another fleet through the wormhole, and the alpha and Beta Quadrants would have fallen. Without Section 31's actions, the Federation, quite literally, would not exist post DS9. DS9 literally proved them right in the end.
Not even getting into how the Federation has mandated, and idealized, genocide across itself with the "Prime Directive" garbage. Section 31's actions in that case weren't even against typical Federation law.
Really? Let's think that through. What did the genocide attempt actually effect?
Did it affect the ability of the Female Changeling to command her forces? No, because she never exercised tactical or operational command: when she was healthy, she left that up to Weyoun and to a lesser extent Dukat and Damar. Recall the scene in "Sacrifice of Angels" where Dukat explains his pincer movement to the FC: he would have had no need to if she was actually the senior military commander, because he would've been taking orders from her. During the Battle of Cardassia the virus did affect her judgement, by making her more genocidal, not less: she was prepared to take the population of the entire planet down with her.
Did it affect the Dominion's ability to bring reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant? No: that was all the doing of the Prophets (and briefly the Pah-wraiths). They can't bring more reinforcements because the Prophets will make them go poof, not because the changelings are sick.
Did it affect the Dominion's ability to manufacture its own reinforcements in the Alpha Quadrant? No: Jem'Hadar and Vorta are cloned at facilities for which the presence or absence of a changeling is irrelevant.
Did it affect the Romulans' joining the Alliance and tipping the numbers in their favor? No: that was Sisko and Garak.
So, according to the evidence, all the genocide attempt did was make the personage of the FC crazier. Without it, everything goes the same way for the Allies up to the siege of Cardassia Prime, at which point a less crazy FC maybe has the sense to surrender once the Allies gain space superiority.
"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"
So, according to the evidence, all the genocide attempt did was make the personage of the FC crazier. Without it, everything goes the same way for the Allies up to the siege of Cardassia Prime, at which point a less crazy FC maybe has the sense to surrender once the Allies gain space superiority.
>Ignoring the very thing you had mentioned yourself just previously about how the cure allowed them to end the war
>the cure they wouldn't have been able to give had Section 31 not infected them first
I sometimes wonder if you remember your own posts sometimes.
Then allow me:
By the time the disease started affecting the Changelings, the Wormhole was already sealed. By the time Odo offered the Female Changeling to cure the Dominion had already lost the war! All Odo achieved was to save the population of Cardassia Prime and thousands of allied servicemen from a long and costly siege/assault.
In other words, Section 31's virus didn't turn the tide of the war; didn't save the Federation; and didn't end the war. All of that would have still happened if Section 31 hadn't done anything at all. If anything, Section 31 helped the enemy, because the remnants of the Dominion fleet were allowed to return to the Gamma Quadrant, and their actions resulted in the salvation of Cardassia Prime, the homeworld of a traditionally hostile power (I'm assuming the attempted genocide of Cardassia would have happened regardless when the Cardassians swapped sides, since that seems standard Dominion operating procedure).
so, what you're saying is, "The claimed ends justify the actual means"?
From a personal standpoint? No.
From the standpoint of why they would very likely exist in Star Trek, to them, yes.
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.
any agency that is immune to oversight and accountability is going to end up 'taking over' to more efficiently execute their stated mission, and in the process, this tends to end that stated mission or drop it in favour of more domestic control.
why? "So they can do their job unimpeded!!"
In practice, your high ideals become nothing more than window-dressing for a police state that gleefully violates in practice what they rant in theory, because such an arrangement is fundamentally corrupt in conception, and in practice will be corrupted before the ink's dry on the first order.
The entire agency, from the file clerk to the director and all of the field agents, would have to have a superhuman level of self-control (by superhuman, I really mean supernatural) not to fall into the trap of corruption. It almost certainly could not contain humans or humanoid organic aliens, because it would literally corrupt at the 'speed of thought'.
"this law is inconvenient we'll ignore it."
"That person is in the way, we kill them."
"That elected person is too close to the truth, remove/neutralize them"
"that idea is too dangerous, silence them."
what you get is a knock in the middle of the night and someone off to the gulags, or dead quietly with the investigation suppressed, becoming the 'new normal' in you 'free society'.
Which is why it makes so much sense that Section 31 is controlled by an AI. An AI is only as corrupt as its programming allows it. It would explain why AIs like Data and the Doctor had such a hard time in being recognized as a sapient being. The Section 31 AI doesn't want the competition with other intelligent AIs messing with its plans.
By the time the disease started affecting the Changelings, the Wormhole was already sealed. By the time Odo offered the Female Changeling to cure the Dominion had already lost the war! All Odo achieved was to save the population of Cardassia Prime and thousands of allied servicemen from a long and costly siege/assault.
Except this is untrue. The minefield around the wormhole had come down, and Sisko had to go into the wormhole and beg the Prophets to dues ex away the entire fleet of Dominion ships that was coming to kill them.
And while that fleet vanished, and would be a setback for the Dominion.... the Dominion had plenty more where that came from. One Dominion fleet, with Cardassian and Breen assistance, was able to bring the combined Federation/Klingon/Romulan Alliance to their knees. Imagine if they actually TRIED and sent in multiple fleets? The Alliance wouldn't stand a chance.
Except it's clearly established that they can't. The Dominion Command make clear after 'Sacrifice...' That reinforcements aren't coming. And in any case, it would be disingenuous to say that the Prophets wouldn't stop the first fleet to save Bajor, only to let the next one through! That was the entire premise of their decision to stop the 2400 in the first place!
Again, this is not what I'm arguing at all, and is totally beside the point. If, in my fiction, I say all starships have to be pink, then proceed to tell a story about a green starship, I have some serious explaining to do. In Trek we are told humanity has evolved, and yet we see them doing the exact same TRIBBLE that screwed up our century. That might make for good drama, and it might make for good science fiction, but it is a green starship in a pink starship universe. It makes the premise of the setting a lie.
I would contend that the Prime Directive is an example of this. How so? Part of it's purpose is to prevent the Federation from trying to make the galaxy into a utopia. It's the Federation acknowledging that not only is the universe imperfect, but they can't make it perfect.
azrael605: If you're referring to "Dagger of the Mind" that didn't really work very well. I mean it worked, but it was a main-force kind of effect, you couldn't use it to force somebody to do things that were very much against what they would otherwise be doing and still leave them functional enough to be a good agent. See: Dr Van Gelder (who still, even in that state, managed to get the better of them) and Captain Kirk. Your point stands, though. Less so in Discovery's era, mind you, when the Federation weren't in contact with the Romulans yet. Some of what the Vulcans could do was known to at least some in the rest of the Federation by that time, though, because that was in Enterprise. I'm not sure that any form of mind control could ever be a reliable way of keeping a person in line, though - if what somebody makes somebody believe is not true, it'll always keep getting chipped away by experience. But hey, nobody said that Section 31 are always clever.
On the wider subject, I've never found that Section 31 puts much strain on my suspension of disbelief. It's not so dissimilar to the kind of stories you often hear about secret CIA projects, for instance, any of which actually did happen. Some were approved by the government but secret from the public, some seem to have been a surprise even to the government. MKULTRA, for instance - the real, now-publicly-known MKULTRA, leaving out all the conspiracy theories about how they actually succeeded and now have mind-control technology. Haven't time to describe fiasco now, look on Wikipedia. That's the trouble with more-secret-than-secret agencies - the fewer people are allowed to know, the more likely it is that someone in the government will eventually turn around and say "Hey, just what exactly do our spies think they've been doing, and why did they think this was a good idea?"
Comments
At some point Georgiou might realize that she is not looking at her back when together with her crew, and in fact that the people she works with can be trusted.
A traumatic experience could potentially be when she assumes standard Mirrorverse protocols and believes someone betrayed her or is about to and she takes him out - only to realize that he was on her side and she screwed things up because she didn't trust him.
I understand this philosophy. It is what I wholeheartedly disagree with.
The ends do not justify the means, but the means do define the person using them. It is better to die a martyr than to denounce the faith of a lifetime for one more day of life, and that applies to a person, a nation, or a Federation.
Again, this is not what I'm arguing at all, and is totally beside the point. If, in my fiction, I say all starships have to be pink, then proceed to tell a story about a green starship, I have some serious explaining to do. In Trek we are told humanity has evolved, and yet we see them doing the exact same TRIBBLE that screwed up our century. That might make for good drama, and it might make for good science fiction, but it is a green starship in a pink starship universe. It makes the premise of the setting a lie.
And it's not a case of absolute lack of conflict. That misinterpretation is common, but it would indeed make for very boring stories. Conflict is the basis of storytelling; without it we have a news report at best. It should be about solutions which do not involve killing everything in sight and saying, "We had to do it, but tomorrow we'll be better."
We can be better than that. Today.
Remember that old Benjamin Franklin line: "Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead." Secrets have a way of getting out, it's real inconvenient.
Is named after, not "stems from".
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:
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
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".
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Unless we see the actual Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31, then there is nothing in there that warrants a completely autonomous and unethical organization devoted to protect the Federation at any cost. After all, Archer, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Janeway has followed Article 14, Section 31 to bend the rules during times of extraordinary threat. Also, Section 31 doesn't bend the rules, but completely ignores them.
Yeah, that's kind of my point, Starkaos. Section 31 uses the UE Starfleet Charter (not even the Federation Starfleet Charter) as a fig leaf for its actions. It's a pretext no less than Gowron's p**sing and moaning in 2372 about how Teh Evul Alienz must have infiltrated Cardassia because pro-democracy activists can't possibly have overthrown a dictatorship themselves.
That and the actual Section 31 story arc in DS9: peace with the Dominion comes not because Section 31 achieved their goal of wiping out the changeling species, but because Odo, on behalf of the Federation, traded mercy for a Dominion surrender.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Really? Let's think that through. What did the genocide attempt actually effect?
So, according to the evidence, all the genocide attempt did was make the personage of the FC crazier. Without it, everything goes the same way for the Allies up to the siege of Cardassia Prime, at which point a less crazy FC maybe has the sense to surrender once the Allies gain space superiority.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Then allow me:
By the time the disease started affecting the Changelings, the Wormhole was already sealed. By the time Odo offered the Female Changeling to cure the Dominion had already lost the war! All Odo achieved was to save the population of Cardassia Prime and thousands of allied servicemen from a long and costly siege/assault.
In other words, Section 31's virus didn't turn the tide of the war; didn't save the Federation; and didn't end the war. All of that would have still happened if Section 31 hadn't done anything at all. If anything, Section 31 helped the enemy, because the remnants of the Dominion fleet were allowed to return to the Gamma Quadrant, and their actions resulted in the salvation of Cardassia Prime, the homeworld of a traditionally hostile power (I'm assuming the attempted genocide of Cardassia would have happened regardless when the Cardassians swapped sides, since that seems standard Dominion operating procedure).
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Which is why it makes so much sense that Section 31 is controlled by an AI. An AI is only as corrupt as its programming allows it. It would explain why AIs like Data and the Doctor had such a hard time in being recognized as a sapient being. The Section 31 AI doesn't want the competition with other intelligent AIs messing with its plans.
Except it's clearly established that they can't. The Dominion Command make clear after 'Sacrifice...' That reinforcements aren't coming. And in any case, it would be disingenuous to say that the Prophets wouldn't stop the first fleet to save Bajor, only to let the next one through! That was the entire premise of their decision to stop the 2400 in the first place!
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
My character Tsin'xing
On the wider subject, I've never found that Section 31 puts much strain on my suspension of disbelief. It's not so dissimilar to the kind of stories you often hear about secret CIA projects, for instance, any of which actually did happen. Some were approved by the government but secret from the public, some seem to have been a surprise even to the government. MKULTRA, for instance - the real, now-publicly-known MKULTRA, leaving out all the conspiracy theories about how they actually succeeded and now have mind-control technology. Haven't time to describe fiasco now, look on Wikipedia. That's the trouble with more-secret-than-secret agencies - the fewer people are allowed to know, the more likely it is that someone in the government will eventually turn around and say "Hey, just what exactly do our spies think they've been doing, and why did they think this was a good idea?"