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I Have My Suspicions.....

But why does Section 31 Her Imperial Majesty not count as an "Undercover Operative"?!?!?
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."

Comments

  • DScottHewittDScottHewitt ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2019
    Kaitee wrote: »
    To be fair to DB, she's not really trying very hard to be undercover - she basically flaunts her Section 31ness every chance she gets, and the only concession she makes to not being IDed as the Emperor is not literally telling everyone she's the Emperor, so at least the people who don't know the Mirror Universe is a thing don't know specifically why she's acting like a cross between Julius Caesar and the Joker.

    My suspicion was based on the Season Two trailer, where she was basically walking up to everyone she came across going "Look at my pretty Section 31 Black Badge!"

    Just wondered because shehe is my top Voyage Security right now, and the Slotot Bonus was "Undercover Operative".



    EDIT TO ADD: Another Kaitee post that made me chuckle!!!!!!!
    "The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
  • FlemmingFlemming ✭✭✭✭✭
    Diabolical!
    Intentionally Left Blank
  • Princess TristaPrincess Trista ✭✭✭✭✭
    Or why isn't the Borg queen a villain?
  • (HGH)Apollo(HGH)Apollo ✭✭✭✭✭
    Or why isn't the Borg queen a villain?
    Agreed Trista. Villain comes up so much in Voyages on the Command or Diplomacy slot and the Borg Queen does not give bonus.
    Let’s fly!
  • Because Discovery ruined Section 31. She's not undercover in that show
  • DScottHewittDScottHewitt ✭✭✭✭✭
    Because Discovery ruined Section 31. She's not undercover in that show

    I have to agree. At least so far, ST:DISCO's use of Section 31 makes zero sense. They're treating it as if it were an un-uniformed version Starfleet Intelligence, rather than a rogue secret organization that the Federation doesn't even acknowledge exists. Admiral Cornwell acting like a superior officer to both Pike and Leland, and telling them to work together on the bridge of a Section 31 ship (what!?!) completely ruined the concept.

    Let's never forget that that a Section 31 guard IN FULL STARFLEET UNIFORM AND WEARING A SECTION 31 BADGE was seen in the very first episode that actually took place on Disco.
    "The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
  • DScottHewittDScottHewitt ✭✭✭✭✭
    Alex Kurtzman continues to prove he has no idea what Section 31 is or what he's doing

    I had high hopes for awesome, five layers of subterfuge, Section 31 stories when I saw the deleted scene from Season One. I really did. There were many excellent Section 31 stories in the other series, where what you thought was going on was not what was going on. Nor was what you thought was going on the second time. Or the third. And thus onwards........
    "The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
  • Matt_DeckerMatt_Decker ✭✭✭✭✭
    Let's never forget that that a Section 31 guard IN FULL STARFLEET UNIFORM AND WEARING A SECTION 31 BADGE was seen in the very first episode that actually took place on Disco.

    Yup, that sums up the problem.

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  • (HGH)Apollo(HGH)Apollo ✭✭✭✭✭
    Discovery takes place long before Deep Space Nine. About a hundred years before. We may well see in Discovery why Section 31 goes more and more covert. How many people know about Section 31 in Discovery besides Cornwell and the officers of Discovery? Section 31 probably should be a little more covert but if their name is not mentioned in the show then how will casual fans know about it when CBS makes the Section 31 show with Michelle Yeoh? Further, what proof do we have that Section 31 has not always been a part of Starfleet Intelligence? One that Starfleet can claim no knowledge of when Section 31 does something illicit? All we have are Agent Sloan's word that Section 31 is separate and he is a known liar and manipulator. Agent Sloan's words do not match with what events we saw transpire in Deep Space Nine. Admiral Ross was clearly working with them to bring about the downfall of Senator Cretak and the installation of Chairman Koval to the Romulan governing council.
    Let’s fly!
  • DScottHewittDScottHewitt ✭✭✭✭✭
    I can't help but think two things would have made the Disco Section 31 problem better.

    1} Writers not having to cater to "awareness" of an upcoming spin-off.

    2} Writers/producers CBS caring about continuity and avoiding retconn.


    #1 is probably the bigger problem!!!!!!
    "The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
  • (HGH)Apollo(HGH)Apollo ✭✭✭✭✭
    In DS9 the whole command staff finds out about Section 31. In Enterprise the whole command staff finds out about Section 31. In Discovery the whole command staff finds out about Section 31. I guess you could complain that the Discovery people did not have a couple episodes in which they have to find information about Section 31 but after having that on Deep Space Nine and Enterprise would you want to see it again for a third time? Also, Georgiou is an undercover operative. She was undercover when she did a mission on Q'onos which was the episode that aired on the day of the event with her Section 31 Georgiou character. That was the episode her in game character was based on.
    Let’s fly!
  • KaiteeKaitee ✭✭✭✭✭
    I liked how DS9 handled Section 31 (and honestly I forget what Enterprise did, I know I've watched them all but I was probably in bed at the time and possibly fell asleep), but I feel like there's wiggle room there. I mean, Sloan's not really following the MiB example of strict neuralizer discipline, he gives Bashir a guided tour of Section 31's LinkedIn profile then just lets him wander off to tell whoever he pleases. And he's in full bromance with O'Brien, who gets abducted and mind-probed so often he's got frequent flyer miles with half the alien empires in the Alpha Quadrant. Then later on that whole Romulan plans has 'Step Five: Dupe Bashir Into Telling All The Entire Romulan Government About Us'. They're not doing information absence, they're doing information management - the crew of some space station gets told about them, no problem, we've got a guy at HQ who'll make sure Sisko's report doesn't get read by anyone who shouldn't. Romulan Senate gets a briefing, we've set it up so it'll seem like a hoax, and BTW the admiral on the scene - who isn't some guy we brought in just for this op, he's been Sisko's boss for the whole war - will give it a 'case closed' stamp and look the other way. They say Section 31's in the Starfleet Charter (hence "section 31"), presumably that's a document Starfleet personnel are allowed to look up on subspace wikipedia if they're feeling historical, and nobody's saying "Hey this is three hundred years old, why's this one bit redacted still?" Sure they seem uber-secretive to Sisko and co., but once you get those admirals bars on your uniform there's probably a quiet briefing from some nondescript guy in between the tour of headquarters and the warning not to order 'live grub surprise' from the kitchen because somebody put it on the catering menu years ago and nobody knows why.

    So they're not just this rogue agency running around playing James Bond for lulz while Starfleet doesn't have a clue - Starfleet (that is, the Admiralty, or at least enough to keep operations ticking over smoothly) obviously does know, they're just maintaining plausible deniability and not telling anyone below flag rank because they don't Need To Know. I don't feel like that's really such a drastic departure from Disco, where they seem to be like the black helicopter brigade, you're surprised if you ever actually see the badge in person but everybody who's been through the Academy has heard somebody talk about how they exist. My guess is that at some point during this whole Red Angel thing they're going to make a humiliatingly wrong call (like trying to blow her up at an inopportune moment, even though doing so would make Earth implode or whatever), and Starfleet decides S31's outlived its use, their internal culture is obviously too tainted by institutional paranoia, and it's time to shut them down and transfer their duties to regular Starfleet Intelligence, whereupon Section 31 is disbanded, and several high-ranking Admirals carefully Do Not Notice how the numbers of ships decommissioned and personnel reassigned aren't quite the same numbers as those Section 31 had on the books to begin with. A hundred years later, sure, if you dig into old documents you'll read about how there was this Section 31 agency doing intel work (and maybe those documents might suggest the work they were doing wasn't that critical anyway), but they're long gone.
  • DScottHewittDScottHewitt ✭✭✭✭✭
    Kaitee wrote: »
    I liked how DS9 handled Section 31 (and honestly I forget what Enterprise did, I know I've watched them all but I was probably in bed at the time and possibly fell asleep), but I feel like there's wiggle room there. I mean, Sloan's not really following the MiB example of strict neuralizer discipline, he gives Bashir a guided tour of Section 31's LinkedIn profile then just lets him wander off to tell whoever he pleases. And he's in full bromance with O'Brien, who gets abducted and mind-probed so often he's got frequent flyer miles with half the alien empires in the Alpha Quadrant. Then later on that whole Romulan plans has 'Step Five: Dupe Bashir Into Telling All The Entire Romulan Government About Us'. They're not doing information absence, they're doing information management - the crew of some space station gets told about them, no problem, we've got a guy at HQ who'll make sure Sisko's report doesn't get read by anyone who shouldn't. Romulan Senate gets a briefing, we've set it up so it'll seem like a hoax, and BTW the admiral on the scene - who isn't some guy we brought in just for this op, he's been Sisko's boss for the whole war - will give it a 'case closed' stamp and look the other way. They say Section 31's in the Starfleet Charter (hence "section 31"), presumably that's a document Starfleet personnel are allowed to look up on subspace wikipedia if they're feeling historical, and nobody's saying "Hey this is three hundred years old, why's this one bit redacted still?" Sure they seem uber-secretive to Sisko and co., but once you get those admirals bars on your uniform there's probably a quiet briefing from some nondescript guy in between the tour of headquarters and the warning not to order 'live grub surprise' from the kitchen because somebody put it on the catering menu years ago and nobody knows why.

    So they're not just this rogue agency running around playing James Bond for lulz while Starfleet doesn't have a clue - Starfleet (that is, the Admiralty, or at least enough to keep operations ticking over smoothly) obviously does know, they're just maintaining plausible deniability and not telling anyone below flag rank because they don't Need To Know. I don't feel like that's really such a drastic departure from Disco, where they seem to be like the black helicopter brigade, you're surprised if you ever actually see the badge in person but everybody who's been through the Academy has heard somebody talk about how they exist. My guess is that at some point during this whole Red Angel thing they're going to make a humiliatingly wrong call (like trying to blow her up at an inopportune moment, even though doing so would make Earth implode or whatever), and Starfleet decides S31's outlived its use, their internal culture is obviously too tainted by institutional paranoia, and it's time to shut them down and transfer their duties to regular Starfleet Intelligence, whereupon Section 31 is disbanded, and several high-ranking Admirals carefully Do Not Notice how the numbers of ships decommissioned and personnel reassigned aren't quite the same numbers as those Section 31 had on the books to begin with. A hundred years later, sure, if you dig into old documents you'll read about how there was this Section 31 agency doing intel work (and maybe those documents might suggest the work they were doing wasn't that critical anyway), but they're long gone.

    I just finished Enterprise. Quick recap:

    Reed was an Operative before his posting on Enterprise. Section 31 helped the Klingons kidnap phlox to cure a deadly virus that was caused by the Klingons trying to make Augments. Phlox developed a cure, but a side affect was de-ridging Klingon foreheads.

    While talking to Reed's "handler" Jonathan was told about the origin of the agency.


    Article Fourteen Section 31 of the Federation Charter says something along the lines of "In times of extreme crisis, the Federation can take extreme, even illegal, measures to resolve the crisis."
    "The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
  • KaiteeKaitee ✭✭✭✭✭
    Huh - I remembered the Klingon stuff, totally had no recollection that Section 31 was involved.
  • Dirk GundersonDirk Gunderson ✭✭✭✭✭
    Kaitee wrote: »
    Huh - I remembered the Klingon stuff, totally had no recollection that Section 31 was involved.

    There is a second S31 feature in the late season 4 episode Terra Prime, where Reed barters with Harris to get information on the whereabouts of Baby Elizabeth in exchange for Reed once again being an agent. It was a shorter feature but showed that Section 31 was as connected to domestic politics and security issues as they were with foreign schemes.
  • KaiteeKaitee ✭✭✭✭✭
    See if I had to guess I would've thought Section 31 was entirely to do with the Terra Prime thing with... whatever happened, RoboCop had a lair that was a flying saucer, something, maybe a giant laser, my brain wants to say they were ticked off that one of their MPs was marrying an asari but that was Terra Firma, why aren't these groups more original? I remember Reed was mixed up with S31 but I can't honestly say that's not because of seeing Section 31 Reed here.

    I really like season four but not everything worked...
  • DScottHewittDScottHewitt ✭✭✭✭✭
    Kaitee wrote: »
    See if I had to guess I would've thought Section 31 was entirely to do with the Terra Prime thing with... whatever happened, RoboCop had a lair that was a flying saucer, something, maybe a giant laser, my brain wants to say they were ticked off that one of their MPs was marrying an asari but that was Terra Firma, why aren't these groups more original? I remember Reed was mixed up with S31 but I can't honestly say that's not because of seeing Section 31 Reed here.

    I really like season four but not everything worked...

    Yeah. RoboCop had a mine complex that was a spaceship. He took over the Verteron Array on Mars that was used to protect the colony from asteroids. His terrorist group was using the Xindi Incident, and a manufactured baby from Trip/T'Pol DNA, stir up fear and get aliens out of the Sol System. Travis's ex was a spy for Starfleet Intel pretending to be a spy for Terra Prime. Or Terra First. The terrorist group.
    "The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
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