Star Trek The General Star Trek Thread - From TOS to Corporate Schenanigans
- Thread starter bullethead
- Start date
-
- Tags
- star trek
Wow...both of those ideas really suck.
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
Not to mention the implication is that we're supposed to see Section 31 as the good guys.
The problem is that both pre and post Kurtzman canon has shown Federation/Starfleet leadership to be massive morons, so there's no valid counterargument that they aren't necessary or justified in their existence.
The problem with Section 31 outside of DS9 and Enterprise is that they're written by ideological hacks who are totally disconnected from the reality of the setting, so Section 31 is basically dumbass space CIA, instead of competent space CIA.
(Star Trek into Darkness is kind of weird in that the writers' intended reading of the film is Section 31 is the bad guys... but when you break down the timeline of events, everything Section 31 does post-Khan shooting up the meeting makes more sense as a reaction to some dumb decision Kirk makes. Kirk gives orders to go to Qo'nos, instead of stopping at the border and shooting the torpedoes? Cripple the ship so there's time to scramble the Vengeance. Kirk lies to Marcus and runs away, apparently in kahoots with Khan? Pursue and blow up the ship.)
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
I assume competent CIA means RL CIA?
Then you are in for a rude awakening:
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the …
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan,…
But it is a mix of incompetence and carrierism and the bureaucratic mess they have more than actual evil.
A "realistic" piece of spy fiction is more The Office or Dilbert than James Bond and Jason Bourne.
It would have been way more fun to make them into a secret group of troubleshooters that get the usual ST/FedGov idiots out of their messes, ala Kingsman or the Retief series, only with an organization rether than one guy.
Last edited:
No, RL CIA is on par with or far worse than even Kurtzman Section 31.
Competent CIA refers to a hypothetical CIA that actually does their job with minimal collateral damage and actually effectively deals with threats to their country.
Typhonis
Well-known member
The problem is we only ever hear about the CIAs screw ups.
In an effort to avert some lame derail discussion about the CIA that was completely avoidable (and intentional)... another random Star Trek meme.
Also as an aside, Rest in Peace Brock Peters, who portrayed Fleet Admiral Cartwright in Star Trek VI as the officer stringently opposed to Klingon immigration and the co-conspirator with Klingon General Chang in assassinating the Federation President. He also portrayed Joseph Sisko, Captain Benjamin Sisko's Father. He passed away in 2005 at the age of 78.
And of course RIP to Rene Auberjonois who probably doesn't need any introduction for Star Trek fans. He passed away at the age of 79 back in 2019. He had an uncredited role as a Federation Colonel in Star Trek VI.
Also... WHERE WAS SECTION 31?!?!?!
There's probably an answer for that as well.
Also as an aside, Rest in Peace Brock Peters, who portrayed Fleet Admiral Cartwright in Star Trek VI as the officer stringently opposed to Klingon immigration and the co-conspirator with Klingon General Chang in assassinating the Federation President. He also portrayed Joseph Sisko, Captain Benjamin Sisko's Father. He passed away in 2005 at the age of 78.
And of course RIP to Rene Auberjonois who probably doesn't need any introduction for Star Trek fans. He passed away at the age of 79 back in 2019. He had an uncredited role as a Federation Colonel in Star Trek VI.
Also... WHERE WAS SECTION 31?!?!?!
There's probably an answer for that as well.
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
Also... WHERE WAS SECTION 31?!?!?!
There's probably an answer for that as well.
Section 31 was first introduced in DS9, well after Rodenberry was relegated to a consultation role after Star Trek The Motion Picture (and TNG seasons 1 and 2). And even then, they were shown to be very morally grey at best, and outright antagonistic at worst, more often than leaning towards the latter too. They were very much...alien? Antithetical, to his idealized vision of the future as embodied by Star Trek.
The increasingly central and even necessarily evil role Section 31 has played in recent Star Trek media would have Rodenberry throwing a fit worse than his outrage over Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country. And I agree. I'll gladly admit I'm not the biggest fan of Roddenberry's idealized setting as realized in the first three seasons of TNG, but it's easily more palatable than the tripe that's Nu Trek and other recent Star Trek media.
Roddenberry was literally dead at that point. Like, he died in 1991 or so, like 6-7 years before DS9 even introduced Section 31.
How convenient that we only learned of Section 31 after Roddenberry was "retired."
Almost too convenient...
I'm not allegeding anything. Just asking questions...
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
TBH Rodenberry was too sugary where utopian ideals were concerned.
While it worked fine in TOS the early seasons of TNag were meh because of excessive preachyness.
DS9 made Trek more realistic and human.
Although it copied from B5, so obviously it would be darker than your normal trek.
What's the sitch?
Well-known member
While I dislike shadow governments, as a whole the federation is way too naive and relatively innocent/bumbling fools living in their utopia that they legitimately need people in the background making the decisions. Theres probably a ton of minor to moderate things they have engineered and kept going in the background that we never hear about. I just have to see Captain Picard and others be themselves over and over again to make me facepalm into accepting the shadow government as insurance against idealists letting in the hordes. We see the "open palm" with the flagship captains and section 31 are the closed fist.
Last edited:
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
I liked the Federation as a truly good and honorable utopia in ToS and early TNG. It was part of the escapist fantasy of Star Trek. A civilization worth fighting for. I disliked how it was twisting into an increasingly inept, negligent, and morally bankrupt state - just like any modern state - as the series went on. It becomes harder to be patriotic about the Federation in late TNG and DS9. "Well, they're better than the alternatives, but...". Sloan trying to seduce one of the heroes (who was infatuated with the fantasy of being a secret agent) into joining his small group of radicals and being refuted made for an interesting subplot, but I dislike the idea of Section 31 being a big, semi-official organization.
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
DS9 did it right, though. It had that perfect balance of the idealism from TOS and TNG, as well as the dark and gritty realistic zeitgeist of the years it aired in.
Nu Trek and everything after it are the opposite of early-TNG, too bleak to really care about.
Honestly, aside from Star Trek into Darkness and Discovery S1-2, where the writing is just fucking awful all around, there isn't all that much bleakness in post-Berman Trek.
Like, any and all foibles Starfleet/the Federation have in Lower Decks is something they already had in Berman era Trek, all the bad stuff in Prodigy happened because literally half of one species was a bunch of douchebags and other half wasn't, Discovery S3-4 Federation/Starfleet was recovering from a galaxy wide disaster and still did their best to help people, Picard S1 Federation/Starfleet had to pull back and hunker down after Romulans blew up the core of their starship industrial complex and tricked them into banning AI - which immediately got reversed once they learned the Romulans caused that, Strange New Worlds has the Federation/Starfleet do their best to help everyone out while dealing with how big space is...
Hell, the main flaw of the Federation in Strange New Worlds is intolerance for genetic engineering and unreasonable punishment for it... which is from Berman Trek.
Like, any and all foibles Starfleet/the Federation have in Lower Decks is something they already had in Berman era Trek, all the bad stuff in Prodigy happened because literally half of one species was a bunch of douchebags and other half wasn't, Discovery S3-4 Federation/Starfleet was recovering from a galaxy wide disaster and still did their best to help people, Picard S1 Federation/Starfleet had to pull back and hunker down after Romulans blew up the core of their starship industrial complex and tricked them into banning AI - which immediately got reversed once they learned the Romulans caused that, Strange New Worlds has the Federation/Starfleet do their best to help everyone out while dealing with how big space is...
Hell, the main flaw of the Federation in Strange New Worlds is intolerance for genetic engineering and unreasonable punishment for it... which is from Berman Trek.
Intolerance for genetic engineering goes back to TOS and "Space Seed", but the ridiculous punishments does go to Berman Trek and DS9.
UberIguana
Well-known member
Except for that one TNG episode where they were engineering a bunch of test-superhumans with telepathy and immune systems that actively sought out threats. None of the Enterprise crew seemed to care beyond how impressive the work was. I guess everyone ignores that one due to the implications of using a transporter to reverse ageing. Or maybe they ignore it because it had Pulaski in it.
The whole incident might have just reaffirmed their anti-genetic engineering attitude and the whole thing got memory-holed by Federation idealists.
The whole incident might have just reaffirmed their anti-genetic engineering attitude and the whole thing got memory-holed by Federation idealists.