rhoenix wrote:Of course not, with the forum rank of "Secret Agent Man." That would be wrong and misleading.
The problem I have is that Section 31 is totally unaccountable, but is also way too effective to be a 'rogue group'. I believe it was implied in 'Inter Arma' that there is some covert support for it in the highest echelons of power and authority in the Federation.
Anyway, I hate it. I hate it as a concept and I hate its execution. Starfleet Security and Intelligence have already been established in TNG (and presumably existed in Kirk's time) and I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to invent a new organisation that haha has existed since the dawn of time (re: the Federation's formation at least) and is no doubt responsible for any event that could even remotely be described as having some kind of shadow hand influencing it.
Out of universe, the writers obviously wanted to make the Federation 'darker' and 'edgier' than what we're used to. But for fuck's sake, what for? Starfleet has not always been squeaky clean so it's totally unnecessary (Admiral Pressman was working on developing a phase-cloak prototype in clear violation of the Treaty of Algeron in 'Pegasus', and Kirk and the Enterprise engaged in espionage in 'The Enterprise Incident' by stealing a next gen Romulan cloaking device). They just wanted to bring in a new villain from the good guy's camp. And I can't help shake the feeling they only brought in the concept to capitalise on the 90s fad of 'lol government conspiracy lol'.
So yeah, boo to Section 31!