BASHIR: Captain, is there any word from Starfleet about Sloan or Section 31?
SISKO: There’s no record of a Deputy Director Sloan anywhere in Starfleet. And as for Section 31, that’s a little more complicated. Starfleet Command doesn’t acknowledge its existence, but they don’t deny it either. They simply said they’d look into it and get back to me.
BASHIR: When?
SISKO: They didn’t say.
KIRA: That sounds like a cover up to me.
BASHIR: I can’t believe the Federation condones this kind of activity.
ODO: Personally, I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t. Every other great power has a unit like Section 31. The Romulans have the Tal Shiar, the Cardassians had the Obsidian Order.
When the top brass of Starfleet are covering your ass, you’re an official agent, whether you’re “on the books” or not.
I mean, if you want to turn a grey issue into something completely black and white, sure.
If you want to assume that because you got some dirt on your shoes, you should just throw them out. Even if you just had to step out of the way of a runaway car.
We literally know nothing about the relationship between Section 31 and Starfleet from that exchange other than that one is letting the other get away with shit. That absolutely speaks to a level of corruption and probably desperation (based on everything else going on in the quadrant at the time), but it doesn’t speak to a level of involvement of one with the other.
It’s the same as Paradise Lost… does one admiral and their staff attempting a literal coup. Does that mean Starfleet as a whole is condoning that coup? Should we just throw the whole thing out because of that incident?
Sure, if you think any measure of corruption means that it’s not worth supporting something anymore.
All you’re doing is making a blanket statement about complex situations with limited information.
We have no idea what the exact situation is, that’s kind of the whole point of the Section 31 storyline in DS9. Making any kind of concrete conclusion from it requires significant leaps in logic.
When the top brass of Starfleet are covering your ass, you’re an official agent, whether you’re “on the books” or not.
I mean, if you want to turn a grey issue into something completely black and white, sure.
If you want to assume that because you got some dirt on your shoes, you should just throw them out. Even if you just had to step out of the way of a runaway car.
We literally know nothing about the relationship between Section 31 and Starfleet from that exchange other than that one is letting the other get away with shit. That absolutely speaks to a level of corruption and probably desperation (based on everything else going on in the quadrant at the time), but it doesn’t speak to a level of involvement of one with the other.
It’s the same as Paradise Lost… does one admiral and their staff attempting a literal coup. Does that mean Starfleet as a whole is condoning that coup? Should we just throw the whole thing out because of that incident?
Sure, if you think any measure of corruption means that it’s not worth supporting something anymore.
All I’m doing is accurately describing the way the organization was depicted on DS9.
All you’re doing is making a blanket statement about complex situations with limited information.
We have no idea what the exact situation is, that’s kind of the whole point of the Section 31 storyline in DS9. Making any kind of concrete conclusion from it requires significant leaps in logic.