#Section 31

[stra-tek]

Mad stuff that's 100% canon in the Star Trek universe:

Going past warp 10 turns you into a hyper-evolved Salamander

Special cheese can bring down the highly advanced bio-neural circuitry of an Intrepid-class ship

A software mod can make a regular transporter beam across many light years

A software mod can make a regular transporter beam across universes

The addition of old DNA in a transporter can reset you physically to whatever age the DNA is from, but with all your memories and experiences intact therefore curing all ills

There's a forcefield surrounding the galaxy and nobody really asks why it's there

Touching it sometimes gives people Q-like powers

There's a Prime Directive not to interfere with pre-warp cultures but everybody does

There's a Temporal Prime Directive not to interfere with the timeline but everybody does

Captain Picard was turned into a Borg for a few days and was never the same again

Captain Janeway, B'Elanna Torres and Tuvok were turned into Borg for a couple of days and where just fine after

Discovery's new captain is probably still waiting on Vulcan

There's a planet in the centre of the galaxy surrounded by a forcefield with a big floating head on it that pretends to be God

The Borg, most deadly dangerous things in the galaxy responsible for enslavement of trillions, could possibly be forever defeated by a single jpeg of a weird shape but they don't do it because sympathy

There's a secret cabal of Starfleet officers that attempted genocide once and it's the only thing that saved the Federation

There's a universe which, when it bleeds into ours, makes everyone uncontrollably sing and dance

[swiftlovinggay]

I haven’t seen any Star Trek fans talk about this post! It’s so sweet!

[quasi-normalcy]

[cult-of-the-eye]

Obligatory tma halloween headcanons post:

tim and sasha are OBVIOUSLY barbie and ken from the barbie movie (other people have said it before and i'll gladly support it)

martin is some horribly obscure costume from a book or a poem no one really knows about and he gets a bit sad that no one knows who he is but then sasha does a quick google and subtly drops hints to everyone to go be like "heyyyy martin, amazing x costume" and then he cheers up

jon just refuses to dress up and everyone (especially Tim) bullies him like "oh amazing socially inept man who's desperately trying to seem good at his job costume!! you've got it spot on!!" and he's so furious that he puts on a costume

and in every iteration of these headcanons, martin is FLOORED at whatever he eventually dresses up as and i am all for that i will eat that shit up

he's so starved for interactions with his crush that he goes feral over jon in non-office clothes

favourite jon costumes include: normal clothes plus cat ears, normal clothes and everyone thinks he's come as a vampire, normal clothes in the later seasons and sasha would be like "jon its not ok for you to dress up as a homeless person" with a shit eating grin and jon's like ...what

bonus - jon doesn't need to dress up cause he's already got his costume - it's someone who's good at their job!!

elias LOVES halloween i bet that man is like fuck yeah i can freak out my archival workers in a whole host of new ways - plastic spiders around the office for jon, little clown dolls for tim, eyes EVERYWHERE and its so gaudy and terrible and everyone despises him

also he really doubles down on calling jon the archivist

i feel like tim secretly hates halloween now but in like early working at the institute, he went along with it cause martin put out a little pumpkin on his desk and sasha smiled at it

melanie fucking loves halloween, she's a legitimately terrifying costume, let's go through the haunted house kinda gal and i love that for her. she's a lets watch all three human centipedes in one night and see what happens kinda gal

daisy and basira despise it cause of all the weird shit that people pull on halloween (and they're on edge that they'll be called for some section 31 shit for all of it)

jon also hates halloween for a similar reason - the increase of joke statements and general taking the piss about the magnus institute

yeah that's all i got. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

[theabstruseone]

With the announcement of the new movie starring Michelle Yeoh, it seems I have to go on my Section 31 rant again.

Section 31 was only done well in Deep Space Nine because the writers of Deep Space Nine understood that SECTION 31 ARE THE BAD GUYS.

They were used as a foil for the grey morality of the show as a warning of "This is where you will go if you continue on this path". Section 31 was the logical endpoint of the show's themes of sacrificing your ethics, morality, and principles in a pragmatic "the ends justify the means" mentality in order to defend those ethics, morals, and principles.

Because you CAN'T.

If you compromise your ethics, morals, and principles in an attempt to defend those very same things, what exactly are you defending? Things you yourself tossed aside when they became inconvenient.

All three (yes, there were only three) episodes of DS9 centering on Section 31 featured Bashir resolving the conflict of that episode WITHOUT compromising his integrity as a citizen of the Federation and a Starfleet officer.

Up to and including preventing Section 31 from committing genocide. Yeah, remember that? When Section 31 infected Odo with a degenerative virus so that he would spread it to the Great Link and kill all of the Changelings? Then specifically stonewalled Bashir when he attempted to find a cure?

Section 31 is not just a tool for telling happy funtime spy stories in Star Trek. That organization is called Starfleet Intelligence and was already around long before DS9. Section 31 is an unauthorized unelected black ops group that functions outside any chain of command or authority that can place any checks on their use and abuse of power. You know, just like EVERY OTHER evil Starfleet officer in every other episode where some Admiral goes off the deep end and starts doing shady shit the Enterprise then has to stop.

Section 31 are the bad guys. They are not antiheroes. They are not just the darker side of Starfleet. They are not the people who must do the evil things that have to be done. They are just evil. Period.

[spockvarietyhour]

Star Trek Enterprise "Affliction"

[novakspector]

[trek-tracks]

Starfleet's newest ice cream parlour didn't do very well.

[geekysteven]

Doing a Star Trek prequel series set before TOS is fine but they'd go back even further if they weren't cowards.

"The wine-dark sea. The final sýnoro. These are the voyages of the trieme Epicheírisi..."

[house-of-quark]

Not garak braiding trackers into Julian's luscious locks after he hears about him being abducted by Sloan.

There's only one spy who can rizz up to Julian and that's none other than this exiled Cardassian!

[stra-tek]

Our first official look at the Section 31 TV movie, and confirmation that it features a young Rachel Garrett (captain of the Enterprise-C in "Yesterday's Enterprise")

[ectogeo-rebubbles]

Happy 31st anniversary, DS9!

Because 31 is the Sloan number, I hereby challenge the fandom to collectively post at least 31 new fanworks tagged "Luther Sloan" on ao3 this year (2024) to celebrate! >:)

(The original air date of the first DS9 episode was Jan 3, 1993.)

[quasi-normalcy]

Which brings us, inexorably, to Picard season three. Here, Section 31—although mostly offscreen—is as evil as it’s ever been depicted: We learn that not only did they engineer a bioweapon for use against the Changelings back during the Dominion War, but they also performed torturous medical experiments on Changeling prisoners of war. The revelations presented are truly heinous—even difficult to watch—and the entire season-long arc largely results from blowback against Section 31’s crimes against sentient life. And yet… the story pairs these revelations not only with complete legitimation of 31 as an organization, but complete acceptance of its crimes on the parts of our ostensible heroes. Worf—you know, the honourable guy? Whose friend, Odo, was deliberately infected with a plague by Section 31 with the intent of using him to wipe out his entire race? That Worf?—even calls them a “critical division of Starfleet Intelligence.” There’s one glorious moment where Picard actually looks sick upon hearing the extent of Section 31’s crimes; but then—arguably in the face of thirty-five years of consistent characterization—he and Dr. Crusher opt to compound them by executing a prisoner of war. This is never mentioned again. Just another day at the office, I suppose. We have, as an official, critical division of our humanist utopia of Starfleet, an organization that openly commits war crimes… and it’s just become part of the setting. It’s not even presented as a reason for Jack not to join Starfleet. One wonders if it was mentioned in the recruitment materials they gave out to the kids on Prodigy.

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

#620

Confessions: 1. I don't want to see the 32nd century. I want to see the 25th and 26th. The 32nd is too far away, I'm not engaged in that. All the previous cannon is like, myths and legends rather than recent history. 2. I don't like how many plots have super high stakes. Like prodigy and picard season three both have "if this thing happens it's gonna kill the entire federation!" Why? It sucks. It sounds like a broken record, and it gets boring. Starfleet security should be better than that. 3. Can we not have earth as the powerhub and centre of the Federation, and this "if Earth falls, the Federation falls" mentality. Like: humans aren't the rulers of this society, let some massive things be dealt with by the Andorians or something. 4. I don't like section 31. It's not starfleet. Thought I'd put them into one ask instead of overflowing your inbox :)

[cuterefaction]

#Trektober Day 15, "Section 31". I love that Luther Sloan is supposed to be a big scary spy man and Julian is able to capture him with a plot a 12 year old could've managed.

[that-vexaholic-cryptid]

I find the Section 31 stuff within Deep Space Nine fascinating. When you remember they exist, and that this is a serialized Trek, it makes you look at things differently

At the end of Bashir's evaluation, Sloan argues that sometimes the end does justify the means, that patients Doctor Bashir saved wouldn't care about him lying to get into Starfleet, that Section 31 "bends the rules" in order to protect them.

When Bashir returns after refusing Sloan, Sisko acts frustrated by being unable to confirm S31 existing, and tells Bashir to accept the next offer.

This puts Bashir in the position of being a double agent, of compromising his values, immediately. Whether he likes it or not.

...

And then what is the very next episode? "In the Pale Moonlight." Where Sisko wrestles with doing EXACTLY the same thing, lying and being an accessory to assassination to get the Romulans into the war, to save untold amounts of lives. Garak says "I call that a bargain," and Sisko concludes the episode by convincing himself that "I can live with it. I can live with it." before destroying his confession.

And this isn't even the first time Sisko bent the rules, by his own accord he bent the rules and destroyed a Maquis settlement just to get Eddington, and did so without Starfleet approval.

The next time Sloan appears, Bashir goes along with him. He eventually figures out this scheme too, and confronts Admiral Ross with the same upstanding morality he did Sloan, to which he responds with "in times of war the law falls silent." Again, bending or breaking the rules to protect lives... lives that Bashir correctly states died in order to protect those rules.

Who is Sisko's superior and confidant in many episodes? Admiral Ross.

I honestly believe Ross and Sisko were fully aware of Section 31 the entire time and were key to trying to get Bashir involved.

And then, after all this, at the very end of the series, Bashir is the one to manipulate Sloan, expose Section 31's attempt at genocide, and SAVE lives by adhering to the rules he swore to protect.

You can see within the show how desperation and the need to preserve power can corrupt anyone, that those tasked with protecting values can so easily become the greatest threat to them. This is brilliant writing, and it bothers me to no end how an idea was pitched to have Bashir join S31 after all. And even more it bothers me how S31 is treated in Into Darkness and Discovery as unambiguous, tropey, necessary evil, and how so much of Trek fans have embraced S31 as that necessary evil because it's "realistic." When was first introduced, fans were very much on Bashir's side, sending in angry letters decrying Section 31 as heresy.

It is realistic. And that's the problem. That's the commentary. First you lie, then you kill, then you're plotting genocide. Every time you bend the rules you become more likely to break them until your efforts eventually become self defeating.

Section 31 exists in DS9 as a criticism, NOT as an endorsement.