You could have done something else.
The cool thing about Section 31 was that it was ambiguous, did it really exist? Was it just one crazy guy? Then Discovery blew that up, and we could have just tried to forget it, but no, let’s make a movie about it.
it was ambiguous, did it really exist? Was it just one crazy guy?
This was never credible, and was never how it was presented in DS9.
Even in “Inquisition”, Sloan had two other guys standing next to him, and an entire starship at his disposal. Starfleet Command covered for him at the end - something that was noted by the DS9 senior staff.
In subsequent episodes, Admiral Ross acknowledged their existence, and Bashir worked out what he believed to be the bare minimum number of operatives required to create the morphogenic virus (73).
Later, we saw them working for the United Earth Starfleet in the ENT era.
The only suggestion that it’s just “once crazy guy” comes from Koval, who then helps Sloan fake his death and is revealed to be a S31 asset in the very next scene.
So no, that’s not really something Discovery changed. People have had to wilfully ignore the DS9 episodes to buy into that theory.
Yeah, way to focus on one part of the comment. Is it possible that Sloan just blackmailed or forced all those others into following his orders? Yes. Plausible? Eh…
Still, the point is the mistery, the ambiguity. Barely anyone knows they exist, Sisko, an experienced commander, didn’t know about them. The bigger they make them, the more unbelievable that becomes.
Nah. DS9 made a big point of showing people doing bad things to accomplish good goals, while always questioning if those were actually good. Nothing about Section 31 is worse than what Sisko does in “In the Pale Moonlight” for example. And after so much about the Tal Shiar, the Obsidian Order, and the actual conspiracies within Starfleet (see STVI, the season finale of TNG season 1, The Pegasus, and Insurrection), Section 31 is not a far stretch at all.
I love DS9 and its grey morality approach, it’s a good contrast to TNG’s attempts at “moral perfection”, and in my comments I didn’t criticize S31’s existence, just that the misterious, barely there approach of DS9 was perfect for that, subsequent stories completely failed to respect the original incarnation, which in my opinion was better, and whose abandonment causes continuity issues
You could have done something else.
The cool thing about Section 31 was that it was ambiguous, did it really exist? Was it just one crazy guy? Then Discovery blew that up, and we could have just tried to forget it, but no, let’s make a movie about it.
This was never credible, and was never how it was presented in DS9.
Even in “Inquisition”, Sloan had two other guys standing next to him, and an entire starship at his disposal. Starfleet Command covered for him at the end - something that was noted by the DS9 senior staff.
In subsequent episodes, Admiral Ross acknowledged their existence, and Bashir worked out what he believed to be the bare minimum number of operatives required to create the morphogenic virus (73).
Later, we saw them working for the United Earth Starfleet in the ENT era.
The only suggestion that it’s just “once crazy guy” comes from Koval, who then helps Sloan fake his death and is revealed to be a S31 asset in the very next scene.
So no, that’s not really something Discovery changed. People have had to wilfully ignore the DS9 episodes to buy into that theory.
Yeah, way to focus on one part of the comment. Is it possible that Sloan just blackmailed or forced all those others into following his orders? Yes. Plausible? Eh…
Still, the point is the mistery, the ambiguity. Barely anyone knows they exist, Sisko, an experienced commander, didn’t know about them. The bigger they make them, the more unbelievable that becomes.
Nah. DS9 made a big point of showing people doing bad things to accomplish good goals, while always questioning if those were actually good. Nothing about Section 31 is worse than what Sisko does in “In the Pale Moonlight” for example. And after so much about the Tal Shiar, the Obsidian Order, and the actual conspiracies within Starfleet (see STVI, the season finale of TNG season 1, The Pegasus, and Insurrection), Section 31 is not a far stretch at all.
“Yeah, way to focus on one part of the comment.”
Yes, people are allowed to do that.
I love DS9 and its grey morality approach, it’s a good contrast to TNG’s attempts at “moral perfection”, and in my comments I didn’t criticize S31’s existence, just that the misterious, barely there approach of DS9 was perfect for that, subsequent stories completely failed to respect the original incarnation, which in my opinion was better, and whose abandonment causes continuity issues
they also play a big role in Into Darkness (not that anyone cares about that one…)
In ENT it’s very heavy handed that Malcom uses to work for section 31, and they really want him back. Big part of a story arc in the last season.