Section 31: Internal menace or necessary evil?

[SpaceMarine93]

Star Trek Deep Space Nine is known for being darker and being anti-thesis to Gene Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek, which is especially prevalent in the Dominion War arc. One of the most notable inclusions of the darker aspects of the United Federation of Planets is Section 31, a clandestine, autonomous intelligence organization which uses ruthless, ends-justifies-the-means tactics to ensure the safety and security of the Federation at any costs.

The Star Trek fandom is split over whether they are an internal threat to the Federation's ideals for going too far or a necessary evil that needs to exist to ensure the Federation does not fall prey to a hostile universe that does not share its ideals. Personally, I'm in for Necessary Evil. What about you guys?

[Ahriman238]

An internal menace, clearly.

It's not unprecedented for people to be confronted by extremists who share broadly similar views and goals, but employ disreputable tactics because they feel their noble goals justify their violent methods. Look at MLK and the Black Panthers, the GOP and the Tea Party (okay, bad example) or, to keep it within the bounds of fiction, this is basically the entire plot of 50 years of X-Men comic books. All the violent fringe does is undermine the legitimate movement, how much more so to a group that values the moral high ground as much as Starfleet?

[Grumman]

Starfleet's moral high ground isn't very high. They are, after all, an organisation that thinks it is unethical to save people from natural disasters even if it costs them nothing.

[Korgeta]

Section 31 should be greatful Bashir found the cure for the founders disease, had they died the Jem'hadar would had sought revenge and would had made the war a lot worse. Section 31 also failed to predict or stop a breen attack on earth. Their goals are short term it seems to strike out any any immediate threats but without thinking of the long term effect. I wish they weren't thought up of in the show.

Starfleet's moral high ground isn't very high. They are, after all, an organisation that thinks it is unethical to save people from natural disasters even if it costs them nothing.

Isn't that because of the prime directive, I believe the klingons have a treaty with the federation stating they can't go about conquering minor races left right and centre. And while saving non warp civilizations is all noble and such it can also be direct interference and be seen as a attempt to exert influnce and absorb that culture if the federation decided that every space cat stuck in a tree on every world they come across needed saving.

[mr friendly guy]

Section 31 should be greatful Bashir found the cure for the founders disease, had they died the Jem'hadar would had sought revenge and would had made the war a lot worse. Section 31 also failed to predict or stop a breen attack on earth. Their goals are short term it seems to strike out any any immediate threats but without thinking of the long term effect. I wish they weren't thought up of in the show.

I am a bit dubious whether the Jem'hadar would have fought or been able to fight on for 2 reasons

1. There was an instance of the Jem'hadar failing to protect a Founder and they simply committed suicide after, leaving the Vorta alive. So why not commit suicide?

2. If the Founder didn't surrender, the alliance would have defeated the Dominion at Cardassia at great cost, and the Founder would have been brought to trial, albeit "she" most probably won't have long to live. Most Jem'hadar would have been killed by then, with the remainder stuck in the Gamma Quadrant.

[JME2]

1. There was an instance of the Jem'hadar failing to protect a Founder and they simply committed suicide after, leaving the Vorta alive. So why not commit suicide?

It's different here because she intentionally ordered them to pull back and regroup at Cardassia for a last stand. The Jem'Hadar would have followed her orders without question. Suicide would likely not have happened since they would have fought to the last man -- which granted is suicide from a certain perspective. But it would have been on the Founder's orders rather than their own initiative.

2. If the Founder didn't surrender, the alliance would have defeated the Dominion at Cardassia at great cost, and the Founder would have been brought to trial, albeit "she" most probably won't have long to live. Most Jem'hadar would have been killed by then, with the remainder stuck in the Gamma Quadrant.

It's worth pointing out we don't know what kind of orders the Founders in the Gamma Quadrant left for the Gamma Jem'Hadar as they were dying. They may have continued to maintain order or they may have been ordered to kill themselves. This is something I wish had been fleshed out after the morphoegenic virus was introduced.

[Batman]

Starfleet's moral high ground isn't very high. They are, after all, an organisation that thinks it is unethical to save people from natural disasters even if it costs them nothing.

Isn't that because of the prime directive,

It is. So?

I believe the klingons have a treaty with the federation stating they can't go about conquering minor races left right and centre.

What, exactly, has that got to do with the Prime Directive, at least as interpreted during the TNG era, meaning that their moral high ground isn't all that high actually?

And while saving non warp civilizations is all noble and such it can also be direct interference and be seen as a attempt to exert influnce and absorb that culture if the federation decided that every space cat stuck in a tree on every world they come across needed saving.

Since when is saving an entire civilisation from extinction 'saving every space cat stuck in a tree'? And how in Valen's name does that equal absorbing that culture into the Federation, especially when that culture never finds out about the Federation in the first place?

[Uraniun235]

Section 31 is an unaccountable renegade organization. Saying they're a "necessary evil" is tantamount to believing that we should just let the CIA off the leash completely to perform whatever assassinations, torture, and sabotage they see as necessary without the advice or consent of any legitimate authority. The "plausible deniability" cover doesn't even work, because if they get caught in the act, it's still going to be the Federation's fault; either they authorized the operation, or they failed to track and account for the military resources used to execute it.

[mr friendly guy]

1. There was an instance of the Jem'hadar failing to protect a Founder and they simply committed suicide after, leaving the Vorta alive. So why not commit suicide?

It's different here because she intentionally ordered them to pull back and regroup at Cardassia for a last stand. The Jem'Hadar would have followed her orders without question. Suicide would likely not have happened since they would have fought to the last man -- which granted is suicide from a certain perspective. But it would have been on the Founder's orders rather than their own initiative.

Well yeah, but I was mainly referring to the ones left in the GQ. Any left in the AQ that didn't manage to make it to Cardassia would most probably be too few to make a difference post war.

It's worth pointing out we don't know what kind of orders the Founders in the Gamma Quadrant left for the Gamma Jem'Hadar as they were dying. They may have continued to maintain order or they may have been ordered to kill themselves. This is something I wish had been fleshed out after the morphoegenic virus was introduced.

Good point. Although with no evidence pointing to the Federation (in fact arguably the Federation would be considered too "squemish" or weak to resort to genocidal biological weapons) they might have attacked everyone else before they get to the Federation.

[Eframepilot]

Section 31 is an unaccountable renegade organization. Saying they're a "necessary evil" is tantamount to believing that we should just let the CIA off the leash completely to perform whatever assassinations, torture, and sabotage they see as necessary without the advice or consent of any legitimate authority. The "plausible deniability" cover doesn't even work, because if they get caught in the act, it's still going to be the Federation's fault; either they authorized the operation, or they failed to track and account for the military resources used to execute it.

This is what makes Section 31 an internal menace. It's possible that they have some degree of oversight by the highest levels of Starfleet Intelligence, but there is little evidence for it beyond Admiral Ross's collaboration with Sloan.

[TheHammer]

Without knowing more about Section 31's exploits we can't know for sure which is the case. The thing about unaccountable organizations is that they certainly know how to cut through the red tape. Clearly they do have support from certain high ranking officials, so it must be clear to those persons that it is a "necessary evil". The "plausible deniability" aspect is probably more of a protection for elected and official military from their own government for "breaking the law" rather than denying it to an external entity. But again, not enough is known about what they've done and how they've done it to know if they are worth the potential trouble.

[JME2]

This is what makes Section 31 an internal menace. It's possible that they have some degree of oversight by the highest levels of Starfleet Intelligence, but there is little evidence for it beyond Admiral Ross's collaboration with Sloan.

The Section 31 novels from about 10 years ago delve more into this. It doesn't explicitly state there's some degree of oversight, but it does make clear that a number of high admirals give their support to the organization (ex. Cartwright, Dougherty).