For a RPg I run, I have created an important character.
He's supposed to be revealed, eventually, as one of the few Starfleet officers who know about Section 31 and are actively trying to do something about them.
Has anyone here written or does anyone here know of some decent stories about any such people?
I know that Vaughn, from the new DS9 books has some connection, but they haven't written enough about it yet.
So far all I've decided is that this guy was unofficially 'recruited,' differently than Bashir, in that he was in already working in Starfleet Intelligence, following orders from a superior that happened to be in S31, and the orders got shadier and shadier until he finally figured out what was going on, had a big blowup, and left.
Also, does anybody have any opinions as to what level of covert ops Starfleet officially permits? For instance, Picard's mission in "Chains of Command" was... it's hard to say. They tried to hush it up, but clearly the high-ups thought this was an all right mission.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Personally, I doubt Section 31 exists after "What You Leave Behind," for reasons the following timeline will illustrate.
Ok, psuedo-timeline.
Dominion surrenders. Female changeling has to stay behind to stand trial under the massive international tribunal. (I remember something along these lines being mentioned in the finale. Am I insane?)
Trial begins. In reponse to the question "Why did you attempt genocide against the Cardassians?" the changeling's defense is "Because their allies were trying to do it to us, our response was simply of the same magnitude." (Remember, Odo knew all about the Section 31 virus from Bashir, and knowing how the link works, so too does the female changeling, presumably.)
Court asks for proof. Bashir and others get called in to testify.
Section 31 becomes public knowledge. Huge interstellar scandal. Politicians and Admirals lose their jobs, or find themselves in jail. Troubled soul-searching throughout the UFP.
Following all this I can't see S31 continuing in anything resembling the manner it did before. I'm sure elements of it would crop up again, somewhere, but the last events of DS9 seem to predict an early end for the organization as it presently exists.
Of course, I doubt "They did it first!" is going to be much of a defense, but consider the damage it would do to the Federation. And I doubt Section 31 can cover it up, because the UFP isn't the only one running the show. Knowledge of a deep Federation conspiracy is surely going to interest someone like the Romulans, for instance.
Or at least, that's the story I would tell, if someone had put me in charge.
(I actually considered writing this story, once, but then thought better of it. Feature from it I kept to put into a real story of my own someday: The changeling was assisted by a number of Vorta, all of of whom were last minute clones of high-up Vorta, but who cannot be tried under Federation law because they are, at least by the UFP definition, different people, and thus cannot be held responsible for the crimes of their "parents," even though they are arguably the same people.)
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Just thought of this, don't know if it would work, but maybe S31 had some hand in Pressman's cloaking device? Surely the captain of an Oberth wouldn't have the resources to build one? He mentioned that he had a lot of allies higher-up in Starfleet Command, maybe they helped build the cloak?
Mind you if they had made the Pegasus a Cheyenne as originally intended, Pressman might have the resources on hand to build the device. It was stated that the ship was testing systems to be used on the Enterprise, but surely a phase-cloaking device would need some kind of special coil that wouldn't be on hand or easily machined out in the field?
Posted by ThoughtPyminal (Member # 480) on :
I doubt S31 would ever be allowed to come into the light. It's one of the Fed's dirty little secrets...They're not about to intentionally get into a position where they're going to have to broadcast S31's existence to the galaxy.
Same thing with the Changeling Virus. It's never going to be known, unless there is some kind of independant investigation. (Jake would be the perfect character to do that investigation...like All the President's Men...hey, he wants to be a writer, right?)
The Changeling would probably never stand trial because of things like this.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Except this isn't just the Federation's ballgame, as it were. Let's say that the Klingons are not big on showy post-war trials. Fine. But the Federation, considering its heritage, has to be. So to not insist on one following something like the Dominion War is way out of character, and will attract suspicion from others, like the Romulans. Who, presumably, would have a judge on any court so convened.
It's my opinion, anyway, that to keep itself secret after DS9, Section 31 would have to control not just the entire Federation, but most of the Klingon and Romulan Empires as well, not to mention any interested third parties.
Some people are interested in stories featuring such a godlike unstoppable agency. I am not.
Besides, S31 failed, or at least some number of its agents did. Otherwise its existence would never have been discovered, nor would its complicity in the changeling disease. I can easily imagine some smaller cadre of S31 elites sacrificing much of the agency in order to preserve a smaller core.
Posted by ThoughtPyminal (Member # 480) on :
Nevertheless, I doubt the Federation would willingly tell anybody about S31, even if it was a total failure.
"Yeah. We tried to kill an entire planet full of sentient beings, But we ONLY did it because they were kicking our butt! Surely genocide was acceptable! Right? Surely you Klingons understand THAT."
I don't like the idea of an unstoppable agency either. But it doesn't have to be. There just has to be a damn good reason to keep it secret, even if you dismantle it.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I have no doubt the Klingons, the Romulans or the Cardassians would understand and perhaps even appreciate it... "What you call genocide, I call a day's work" and so forth. Then again, if theser people were told of Section 31, they probably would consider it disinformation to throw them off the scent of the real agency, which they firmly believe is called Branch 47.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
But I doubt most of the Federation knows about them, or would be particularly interested in keeping them if they did. And while I doubt there would be any great moral outrage caused by the news in Romulus, surely they would be interested in using that information to jockey for a better position in the new Alpha Quadrant?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Good point.
I'm not at all convinced that the 24th century UFP would believe in postwar trials of the 20th century type. For one thing, the ideologies of the winner and the loser would be even more radically different than those of the WWII participants - so a "fair" trial would be quite impossible (imagine, say, a war between lions and beetles... "You killed the gnus that give us dung!" "You call that a crime? I'll give you a real crime! You made us itch when we wanted to rest after a hunt! You don't think you should all die for that?"). And our 24th century heroes seem to insist on fairness even at the cost of major "national interests".
Also, the Feds haven't appeared very vindictive so far. They seem to settle for peace treaties where the enemy apparently retains its prewar might, as long as he's cordoned behind a "neutral zone". They don't go for that unconditional surrender thing at all (which is a bit odd, since agreeing about conditions should again be impossible due to major cultural differences).
And the Dominion is far from a beaten enemy. Imagine the court representatives coming to say "Begging your pardon, ma'am, we would like to accuse and judge you, and hear you defend your actions. It's a local custom." The Founder's response? "Don't be ridiculous! Over your dead bodies!" Send a strike team to capture the "war criminal", and you simply reignite the war. I'd imagine the Founders to be far more serious about this than the US about the international court, and far more empowered to actually do something about it...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Shouldn't we be seeing something of Section 31 in Enterprise - seeing as there was the comment "We were around since the birth of the Federation" or something like that.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
I believe it has already been established that Section 31 was part of the Federation charter. Earth doesn't really seem to look at space as a very 'military' thing yet in Enterprise (no "Red Alerts" or similar coordinated responses to threats). The Vulcan's OTOH, do seem to have some sort of secret agency during Enterprise, but probably more on the level of an ordinary Intelligence than something as powerful as S31.
So no Section 31 just yet I think.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Perhaps I am misremembering this, but a specific component of the treaty involved the female changeling staying behind, did it not? It is possible I am quite wrong...
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, the Female Changeling agreed to stay in the AQ and "answer for her crimes." That was the whole reason why Odo had to return to the Great Link in the first place. She was taken away by Starfleet Security after she signed the peace treaty or truce or whatever it was. (Given how soon it was after the last battle, I doubt it was an actual treaty, just a military armistice, a la the Korean War.)
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Um.. so far, this RPG isn't taking place after the Dominion War, but during it.
If that helps.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Do not intrude in our highjack!
Er, yeah.
Uh, anyway, I suspect Starfleet Intelligence probably undertakes the kinds of missions most modern western intelligence agencies do, minus Mossad. No third-party regime toppling or similar dirty tricks, but I wouldn't imagine the Federation has a problem with undercover agents slipping a little sand into the Romulan or Cardassian gears. (Modify names as timeline requires, of course.) Information gathering is probably pretty wide open. And I can't imagine there's much of a limit on providing disinformation, depending on what the goal is. (The Federation is moving starships into sector 39389 is ok. All your people are infected with plasma plague and need this [heh heh] totally nontoxic injection is not, and so on.)
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Okay, then.
Say that Starfleet got wind that a terrorist cell was planning to detonate a small antimatter bomb in big mushroom Starbase, but they didn't have the antimatter yet, and they were currently in a compound on Nimbus XIV, waiting for an equipment delivery. Also they're the 'no surrender, fight to the last man' type.
Would Starfleet object to sending in a 'terminator' to wipe out the cell?
(Think Ah-nuld in 'Commando,' maybe)
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Hmmm. Starfleet would probably try to stop the supply ship (oh wait, it could of course be that the delivery simply comes from another place on Nimbus). I don't think Starfleet would actually send in 'commandos' to kill the terrorists. Probably the Starbase goes on a higher state of alert, with tightened security and more frequent interior scans. Something like antimatter would probably show up on some scanner or perhaps even trigger an automated alert (remember the unauthorized phaser fire in TWOK).
And 'no surrender, fight to the last man' types are still quite vulnerable to phasers on stun. Unless of course they barge into the Starbase with weapons drawn.
I don't think this is really the level of Section 31 though. If it requires any covert operations at all, at this scale the ordinary Intelligence would probably handle it. 31 probably handles the big interstellar issues. Planting operatives in other governments, meddling in interstellar affairs (perhaps they had some links to the TUC conspiracy).
On a related note: what is this Vulcan V'Shar security service mentioned in "Gambit"? Do individual member worlds still have their own military organizations?
[ August 12, 2002, 13:48: Message edited by: Harry ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
From the episode they simply seem to be the Vulcan state patrol. T'Walker, Vulcan Ranger. Certainly no one has ever suggested that Federation worlds don't have their own police/security forces.