I'm moving this conversation from the discussion in "Extreme Measures". Some of us feel that the existance of Section 31 must have Mr. Roddenberry turning over in his grave, while others of us feel that it makes the Trek universe more real. Where do the rest of you stand on this?

Sure, make the Trek Universe more real by bringing Nazis into the Federation! Is it just me, or did Section 31 remind anyone else of the Gestapo? Even the way Sloan tried to kill himself reminded me of how high-ranking Nazi, such as Himmler, killed themselves when they were captured. Section 31 agents wear black, put Sloan in a Gestapo uniform and he would be right at home.

Gene Roddenberry would be so upset if he knew that Rick Berman has turned his respectful Federation into nothing more than a 24th Century Third Reich.

But it's not a 24th century Third Reich! it represents how far some humans are willing to go to protect what they believe in. I think that it is a much-needed element in the Trek universe. It shows that humans aren't perfect. Sorry Gene, but we know now that they aren't. Just 400 years aren't going to change basic human nature. I think that Section 31 is one of the best things to hit Trek in a long time. I won't deny that Gene wouldn't have hated it, but I think it's a good idea nonetheless.

I think Section 31 is a great idea. I don't care
how Gene would feel about it...Sure, he came up
with Star Trek, but he also the moron who wrote
idiotic stuff like Star Trek : The Motion Picture...and unlike Mr. Coward who posted
under anonymous in this topic....I will post
my real name.

It's funny. When TNG first started, Gene's philosophy predominated the series, and most people didn't like it. As TNG continued foward and began to grow further and further away from Gene's influence people said the show got better, they thought it was a good thing. This also happened with the movies too. Most people think ST:TMP was boring and that ST II was a lot better. DS9 has continued what TNG started (moving away from the Ultra-Roddenberry format) and some people think it's a bad thing. Go figure!

DS9 shouldn't be singled out for being Anti-Roddenberry. The movies and late-TNG can be accused of this as well.

I don't know. The First Contact movie strongly reinforced Roddenberry's vision.

I think that Roddenberry's vision was always a good one, one of hope for a peaceful future, when all could work together. But in later years, especially with the Next Generation, he decided that this must mean that humanity would have to be perfect. Not a good thing. I think that Section 31 and the Dominion War have restored a sense of balance.
I don't really think that FC reinforced his vision either. Yes, we got the first warp flight from Earth and the beginning of the Earth-Vulcan alliance. But what happened in the other 85 minutes of the film? Fighting against the Borg for the right to have that. The message conveyed here is that we must always be prepared to fight for what is important and good and right. That, I believe, is just as important as Roddenberry's original vision. If we want peace, we must prepare for war.

To Kevin S:

Yes, that's very true, but in that same movie Lily also points out that that's b.s. I think FC followed the TOS-portrayal of humanity (Earth at peace but humans are *not* perfect like Mpatterson said) closer than it did the TNG-portrayal of humanity (Earth at peace and humans are perfect).

Gene Roddenberry would relate very well to Zephrame Cochrane of First Contact. His vision as well was to make money, for him selling a TV show. There was no perfect Paradise Earth in TOS.
He did sell the show, but remember this, most of the familiar concepts, Klingons, Romulans, Prime Directive, were invented by others. Oh , and the Great Roddenberry stories? "The Omega Glory, and The Motionless Picture are 2 standouts.
My point is the humanist philosophy came in way after the dollars.

Section 31 may not fit with Roddenberry-ized human but the fit quite well with real-life humans. In 2161, the year section 31 was founded, humans were not perfect. We had just finished beating up the Romulans for being Romulans so the Federation President forms Section 31. Since humans (and other humanoids), don't give up outdated goverment traditions easily (The Queen of England comes to mind) they stay around well into the 24th century and beyond.

Also, the vision of Gene Rodenberry is dollar signs, money. That's Gene Roddenbery, that's his vision.

I want to be careful what I say here. This is going to be one of the first messages on a board that is sure to last for sometime.

First. We know that humans havent evolved to any type of perfection. We saw Voyager a couple weeks ago and in 500 years we are messing with time travel and, as you can clearly see, 'Revenge' still exists!!

As for Section31. Hey, if we didnt have this group the war would be over. I have to agree with previous postings, if you want to have peace you must prepare for war. Just because Sloan gave his life to protect the Federation (Remember, noone has implied that he single-handedly engineered this genicide or even that it was his idea to begin with. Our young Doctor says that it took at least 70 or 73 people to cover this thing up.) does not indicate to me that the Federation is evil as a whole just that some people have recognized , like Admiral Daughtrey, the desperation of the current situation.

Thats all I have time for but the bottom line is, I approve and it doesnt seem out of context with the original creation of G. R.

Aloha,

ROBMAN

Does Section 31 contradict Roddenberry's vision? Yes, it does. I'm sure he's spinning in his urn over it.

Does that mean Section 31 shouldn't be part of DS9? No.

TOS didn't dwell on Roddenberry's ideas about the eventual perfection of humanity because there was no time for it. There were very TOS episodes that raised moral questions of any kind.

TNG, though, did raise moral questions, and it always approached them with the attitude that the people whose morality is questionable are the 'bad guys', not the Federation. The Bajoran terrorists, for example. This is pure Roddenberry: humans are perfect, everyone else is still working on it.

In DS9, the Trek writers are willing to reexamine this premise. I think the best criticism of it was Sisko's comment in (IIRC) "For the Uniform": "The problem is Earth...You look out the window of Starfleet Command and you see paradise. Well, it's easy to be a saint in paradise. But these people aren't in paradise." Preach it, Brother Benny.

The existence of a dirty little secret like Section 31 ties into this nicely. In some of the episodes receiving the greatest applause in the Greatest Episodes board (e.g. "For the Uniform", "Children of Time", "In the Pale Moonlight", "Rocks and Shoals") we see that Starfleet officers are finally allowed to be human. I think that's what we appreciate so much about these episodes.

Similarly, Section 31 shows that, 24th Century or not, fear is such a powerful force that good people will tolerate whatever evil is necessary to protect them from the unknown.

This isn't part of Gene's vision of the Federation, but maybe it should have been.

I don't particularly agree with Roddenberry's vision about humanity, but I am uncomfortable with Section 31. To me, it's too much like the consortium bad guys (Cigarette Smoking Man, Well Manicured Man) on "X Files." Section 31 is basically a convenient but implausible boogeyman, available to do Starfleet's dirtywork.

I may not be the right person to say this but then again, I think this fact makes me the perfect person to say this. I dont watch the X-Files and I dont know or care about some ciggarette smoking man. So as the Star Trek story goes and as it stands, alone, I like S31, Sloan was the perfect actor for the part and it has added mystery to the ST story.

Aloha

All good villans make you uncomfortable.

I would have been OK with S31 if it had not been sanctioned by Starfleet. If it had arisen independently, a rogue agency, vigilante of the Federation, covering its tracks, convinced that although the Feds might not like it, they needed it. Finally, there would be a denouement, with the Federation saying, that's it, no more interfering with other cultures, especially if they're our allies! And Sisko could give a speech about how sometimes our worst enemies are ourselves, and those who think they're doing the most good might be doing the most harm.

Instead, S31 got away with everything except killing Odo. I'm not weeping over the Founders being sick, but I'm royally mad about what S31 did to Senator Cretak, who was on the Federation's side. We watch Star Trek because it paints a picture of a universe where justice eventually comes about. Think about it - how would you feel if Khan or Duras had lived happily ever after?

Section 31 is Star Trek's version of the 6th Doctor Who, the dark-side, companion-strangling guy, and he didn't go down too well either.

Roddenbury actually rewrote a good part of the first and second seasons of TOS. He also wrote the Hugo awarding "the Meragerie" and "the Cage". And the motion picture would have made a good 60 mintent episode for Star Trek Phase 2. And Yes he would have hated section 31. he tought "conspiracy" was too dark.
Section 31 works as a good plot thread for the dark world of DS9.

I think S31 is great.It's another step in the darkening of the whole Star Trek universe and I love it.For the first while, everything was hunky-dory , and the feds were doing fine.Now, they're on the losing side in this war and resorting to underhand tactics to survive.S31 is like another sign of this.

I still maintain that Section 31 has no place in the Star Trek universe. Mr. Roddenberry created a world where Nazism and Facism were long since dead.

Now thank's to Rick Berman we see that not only is Hitler's hideous ideology alive and well in the 24th Century, it is fully sanctioned by the Federation.

Something has got to be done, Sisko and Co. must get rid of these Nazis once and for all. If the Federation itself must be dismantled to do it, then so be it. In words spoken many times before:
"NEVER AGAIN!"

What makes you say that S31 is Nazi-like? THe Federation is not run by a fascist government.

Section 31 personel dress in black, like the Nazi Gestapo. They sneak around and kill people in the middle of the night, like the Gestapo did (Sloan told Bashir that Section 31 seeks out enemies of the Federation and quietly eliminates them), their high ranking operatives commit suicide when captured, just like high ranking Nazis. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that Section 31 is right out of Hitler's Germany.

Although the Federation government may not be facist, they do condone Section 31's actions, which makes them guilty as accessories.

Sad to say it seems Hitler's vision is thriving in the 24th Century.

I still maintain that anyone who posts under
"anonymous" is a coward.

Who says that the Fed government condones it? Indeed, it seems that even the former President of the Federation was unaware of it! I think that it is more likely that S31 is run by a few select individuals. The more people you let in on something, the more likely it is that you will have a leak. That's just common sense.

I dont see nazi's at all. To me 31 is just like the cold war CIA. There doing " whatever it takes" to ensure that their side wins. The problem is that such a vision becomes tunnel vision in a very short time, and you wind up sacrificing the principles you stand for to save them. Beuricratic CYA mentality sets in and suddenly you have people who are willing to do almost anything to save not only their side, but also their jobs. "We had to: Kill the president/ poison the water/ invade the country/etc.. To keep our side free. That is why oversite is necessary. Sad to say, in a not always friendly world/ universe, such an orginization (CIA/31) is necessary, but it MUST always be answerable to someone else

By the way, anyone have any idea where the name "Section 31" came from?

Did they replace Sections 1-30? :-)

Yes, I am glad they just admited that Starfleet Command, at least, knows about the Section. I mean if Section 31 were working totally unanswerable to anyone they could have be infiltrated by the Tal Shiar, Obsidian Order, Changlings, whoknowswhat. If 31 decided to kill someone who knows if they were acting in the interest of the Federation. Even as agents acting
in the interest of Starfleet Command I still have
to agree with weirddave. I think it's too easy for 31, under the rules they operate by-"the ends justify the means," to become the enemy and lose sight of what they are really fighting for in the name of "protection." It's too bad they can't see
that for themselves. They used a Starfleet officer and could have killed an ally all in the name of "protecting themselves from the Romulans."
There methods could backfire. The senator they got arrested-killed could very well have been the only one to stop Romulan attack in the long run.

To Alfonso Turnage :

What a good idea! That would be an excellent, ironical turn of events. TPTB will probably not do anything with this, but I'll work the angle into my post-Dominion-war storyline. Section 31 wins the battle and loses the war, like all we-know-what's-best vigilantes do, eventually.

Rene wrote: I still maintain that anyone who posts under "anonymous" is a coward.

Like if someone didn't put Anonymous you'd know who they were?

As much as I don't like Rick Berman, I can't deny these plot threads like S31 do make interesting TV. And that's really the bottom line -- ratings. As much as we loved TOS, what if it never ended? 30 years of one episode after another of "our world is perfect, yours isn't, let us interfere and make you hicks just like us". But on DS9, one episode leads to the next, like a soap opera. The only mistake on Rick's spin-offs is putting the Star Trek name in front of DS9 and Voyager. He probably should've called it Rick Berman Presents: Deep Space Nine: Any similarity between this spin-off series and Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry is purely coincidental.

This is slighlty OT, but I think some are confusing the Gestapo with all Nazi/SS police and agents. The actual Gestapo weren't very numerous or powerful. It was other branches that did most of the ugly work. Somehow the word Gestapo became a catch-all term for all Nazi criminal organizations (criminal in the sense of war crimes and crimes against humanity. I suppose they were technically not violating Third Reich laws that gave them the power to detain, arrest, enslave, and murder/execute people at their discretion. Kind of like Cardassians!)

Kevin S: Some feel that the existance of Section 31 must have Mr. Roddenberry turning over in his grave....
Luigi Novi: An interesting statement on just how well those people are qualified to speak for Roddenberry, given that he doesn't have one, as he was cremated.

Only on a nitpicker site...

If this were a real nitpicker site-someone would point out that not only was he cremated,but the ashes were taken up in the shuttle and left there;umm-nevermind.