Picard Season 3

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In my head I try to envision a Section 31 show I would enjoy and fits the Star Trek ethos. I don't think that would be easy to pull off.
It can't be just a power fantasy: "Hey, we have super-advanced tech, let's torture people, blow stuff up, and what not for the Greater Good (tm) completely consequence-free!"

Each story would probably involve the protagonists only having bad choices to a problem and finding the choice that is the least bad, or whose consequences they can accept the best. Some of the choices should cost the Federation and the protagonists in the short-term in exchange for a better outcome in the long run.
Whenever someone goes for the convenient short-cut, it needs to have some blow-back. Sure, you genocided some aliens that were going to take over that super-valuable dekalitihium planet to fuel their own genocide plans, but someone else gets scared, and abandons contact with all aliens and cancels their admission process to the Federation.

Discovery Season 2 and Picard Season 3 are basically dealing directly with Section 31 fall-out already.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Declearing Trek can only be this vs that.

If Trek or Star Wars or whatever wants to do something different go for it the proo is in the pudding.

Federation won't last forever.

That's literally not what gatekeeping means even slightly.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Well, episode 9 is a mixed bag. I'll spoiler my comments beyond that because I'm writing a few hours after it premiered and it's the most spoliery episode of the season.

Spoiler

They started me off in a bad mood because they had Troi's spotlight moment be her being an absolutely terrible mental health professional in like four different ways, and given that she's got very little screentime this season (partly for scheduling reasons, partly to keep their mystery box a mystery) and this is likely the last outing for the character, a character who got a lot of crap writing in her original series, it's a bummer. Hopefully episode 10 is kinder to her.

Well the big reveal is finally revealed. As much as I felt like season 2 already resolved the Borg, thank god it's the Borg, because anything else that made any kind of sense would feel too inauthentic to the show to reveal this late in the game. I know DS9 diehards seemed to want pah wraiths, but as someone whose watch of that series in order petered out in early season 6 I barely remembered that those are a thing, and they have no connection to Picard. Anything else, even if it was a deep pull from Next Gen lore, would just feel out of left field once they teased it for 8 episodes. I mean the parasites from Conspiracy might have been fun, but they couldn't establish stakes with them this late and live up to the build up. Whether or not a new biological borgification does live up to the build up is a matter of taste, but anything else would have been lamer after teasing it this far. Note to showrunners: don't jerk us around with a mystery for 8 out of 10 episodes, it just sets things up for disappointment.

I really disliked Jack going rogue for the Borg on a dime. If they played it as the Borgness won out after the door was opened that would be one thing, but they went more for "I don't want to go to a mental institution for my obvious mental problems that I acknowledge I need help with, so I will go way out of my way to join up with the Borg." Having an irrational character move to move the plot along I can accept, but given that it needlessly expedites a colossal Star Fleet bloodbath it makes it really hard to redeem the character, which means they probably have to kill him off, which is a shame. I liked Jack.

Shelby was nice as a deep pull. Of course she made Admiral.

As someone who firmly believes transporters are a nightmare fuel technology of disintegrating, cloning, murder machines I really appreciated the detail of them being used to rewrite everyone's DNA for evil. The everyone over 25 is unaffected thing smells of convenience, but I also kind of love it. It makes me disappointed though that we don't now have a couple more episodes to go around pulling classic trek characters out of retirement to save the galaxy in some sort of geezer fleet.

I'm okay with killing off Shaw, but it felt like a needless and abrupt death (if that's what it was, since they've already had him incapacitated with injuries twice, having a third recovery seems unlikely). I don't think they had yet realized he might be a fan favorite character when they plotted it in there. It probably gets characters where they need to be, he got a good last exchange with Seven, and it was his idea that got everyone into that situation which mostly saved them which keeps it from being completely meaningless end, but still the character deserved a better end.

But oh my goodness, what was shaping up to be one of the weaker episodes in the season ended by knocking it out of the fan service park. I thought "oh they're all going to grab classic Trek ships from the museum", but surprise reveal... Enterprise D? Enterprise D! Everyone in their old positions and Picard saying "make it so". The old carpet, the old computer voice. The Enterprise D, back from the dead, to take on all of Borgified Starfleet alone and save the galaxy one last time. Now that's fan service! I don't care that they're manipulating my nostalgia, slather that fan service on. Also nice job keeping that reveal under wraps.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

so, basically in your opinioned shared by others there's no place in star trek for a shadowy organization that honestly answers to no one, and does what it does in it's own twisted vision of the greater good. We just accept that in the future of star trek that the federation utopia is easy to keep (at least in the core,DS9 proved else where it wasn't as pretty) without people taking some sort of measures to make sure it stays that way?

I'm sorry but i have trouble buying into that. Utopia Justifies The Means, I did what i had to do ,The Unfettered all tropes that apply to Star trek and Section 31.

I think it's totally plausible for an organization like the federation to have it's own off the official books group that does the dirty deeds so that others can sleep soundly.

What are you talking about? They're already in Star Trek. So why are you asking if they're plausible?

What I'm saying is that there's no room in Star Trek for portraying them as the "good guys". No good purpose to a show glorifying horrible scumbags like the person who created these super-Changelings through vile torture - that's like making a show glorifying Dr Mengele or Unit 731.

The speech you quoted from an extremely right-wing, arguably even crypto-fascist movie, and is horrific macho "evil is good" "Hard Men Making Hard Decisions" nonsense which is directly opposed to Star Trek's intentional focus on honestly approaching complex moral decisions. The Hard Men Making Hard Decisions trope is directly opposed to that, because instead of honestly examining such decisions, it always, without fail, goes with the most macho and nasty decision as the right one. Torture is always right. Lying is always right. Brutality is always right. Manipulating people is always right. And so on. There's no questions - there's no room for such questions when Hard Men Make Hard Decisions because they're never actually hard - they're easy - that's part of the trope.

(What's extra weird about Gordon's little rant is that Batman hasn't actually done that in those three movies - he's actually been fairly moral and non-murderous. He hasn't dipped his hands in filth. But that further illustrates the extreme politics of the movie.)

 

[Zardnaar]

What are you talking about? They're already in Star Trek. So why are you asking if they're plausible?

What I'm saying is that there's no room in Star Trek for portraying them as the "good guys". No good purpose to a show glorifying horrible scumbags like the person who created these super-Changelings through vile torture - that's like making a show glorifying Dr Mengele or Unit 731.

The speech you quoted from an extremely right-wing, arguably even crypto-fascist movie, and is horrific macho "evil is good" "Hard Men Making Hard Decisions" nonsense which is directly opposed to Star Trek's intentional focus on honestly approaching complex moral decisions. The Hard Men Making Hard Decisions trope is directly opposed to that, because instead of honestly examining such decisions, it always, without fail, goes with the most macho and nasty decision as the right one. Torture is always right. Lying is always right. Brutality is always right. Manipulating people is always right. And so on. There's no questions - there's no room for such questions when Hard Men Make Hard Decisions because they're never actually hard - they're easy - that's part of the trope.

(What's extra weird about Gordon's little rant is that Batman hasn't actually done that in those three movies - he's actually been fairly moral and non-murderous. He hasn't dipped his hands in filth. But that further illustrates the extreme politics of the movie.)

Who says there's no room? Weren't they considering a show on them?

A hypothetical show could go in several directions including a redemption arc.

Show could suck could be good. Hell it's Trek its probably 50/50.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Who says there's no room? Weren't they considering a show on them?

A hypothetical show could go in several directions including a redemption arc.

Show could suck could be good. Hell it's Trek its probably 50/50.

????

You seem to have misunderstood the entire discussion. I'm not sure what to say, apart from maybe re-read carefully.

 

[AnotherGuy]

In my head I try to envision a Section 31 show I would enjoy and fits the Star Trek ethos. I don't think that would be easy to pull off.
It can't be just a power fantasy: "Hey, we have super-advanced tech, let's torture people, blow stuff up, and what not for the Greater Good (tm) completely consequence-free!"

Each story would probably involve the protagonists only having bad choices to a problem and finding the choice that is the least bad, or whose consequences they can accept the best. Some of the choices should cost the Federation and the protagonists in the short-term in exchange for a better outcome in the long run.
Whenever someone goes for the convenient short-cut, it needs to have some blow-back. Sure, you genocided some aliens that were going to take over that super-valuable dekalitihium planet to fuel their own genocide plans, but someone else gets scared, and abandons contact with all aliens and cancels their admission process to the Federation.

Discovery Season 2 and Picard Season 3 are basically dealing directly with Section 31 fall-out already.

It would also likely deal with the cover-up, stopping (likely by any means necessary) Federation employees who are unaware of s31 and are getting too close to uncovering the truth.

 

[Willie the Duck]

It's actually a bit funny. In the various series, TOS, TNG and DS9 especially, any time someone strays from Federation ideals, they are not only shown to be the villain, but, almost entirely wrong. They aren't justified - they are the cause of the problems. Whether it's Patterns of Force or various other episodes - the message was always pretty clear. Following the principles of the Federation is a good thing and leads to good outcomes.

I generally agree about where Star Trek works best, and I am a little frustrated with the recent Star Trek shows on this matter. However, isn't DS9's "Into the Pale Moonlight" often lauded as one of the best episodes of the series and even the IP as a whole?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it probably helps that Kirk's refit featured in some good films, while the E not so much! Then again, maybe it's just nostaglia talking. Probably there are those who grew up on TNG to whom the E is totally iconic.

You didn't like First Contact?

 

[trappedslider]

What are you talking about? They're already in Star Trek. So why are you asking if they're plausible?

What I'm saying is that there's no room in Star Trek for portraying them as the "good guys". No good purpose to a show glorifying horrible scumbags like the person who created these super-Changelings through vile torture - that's like making a show glorifying Dr Mengele or Unit 731.

The speech you quoted from an extremely right-wing, arguably even crypto-fascist movie, and is horrific macho "evil is good" "Hard Men Making Hard Decisions" nonsense which is directly opposed to Star Trek's intentional focus on honestly approaching complex moral decisions. The Hard Men Making Hard Decisions trope is directly opposed to that, because instead of honestly examining such decisions, it always, without fail, goes with the most macho and nasty decision as the right one. Torture is always right. Lying is always right. Brutality is always right. Manipulating people is always right. And so on. There's no questions - there's no room for such questions when Hard Men Make Hard Decisions because they're never actually hard - they're easy - that's part of the trope.

(What's extra weird about Gordon's little rant is that Batman hasn't actually done that in those three movies - he's actually been fairly moral and non-murderous. He hasn't dipped his hands in filth. But that further illustrates the extreme politics of the movie.)

I seemed to have touched a nerve using the quote from Rises.

In my head I try to envision a Section 31 show I would enjoy and fits the Star Trek ethos. I don't think that would be easy to pull off.
It can't be just a power fantasy: "Hey, we have super-advanced tech, let's torture people, blow stuff up, and what not for the Greater Good (tm) completely consequence-free!"

Each story would probably involve the protagonists only having bad choices to a problem and finding the choice that is the least bad, or whose consequences they can accept the best. S

There's a quote from Argo, which I think sums up what you're saying here: "It's the best bad idea we have." but yeah I think an S31 show along the lines of what you're thinking would work depending on the writer.

In an interview during DS9's run Writer David Weddle said many fans felt Section 31 betrayed the value system created by Gene Roddenberry, while others were indifferent or intrigued. "Fans would get into these long ethical and political arguments, really struggling with issues like that, which was great to see."

Ira Steven Behr was inspired by a line of dialogue from Deep Space Nine episode "The Maquis" spoken by Commander Benjamin Sisko: "It's easy to be a saint in paradise." Behr said in the 1999 reference companion to the series, "Why is Earth a paradise in the twenty-fourth century? Well, maybe it's because there's someone watching over it and doing the nasty stuff that no one wants to think about."  He expressed an interest of exploring what life was really like for those living the fictional 24th century, saying "Is it this paradise, or are there, as Harold Pinter said, 'Weasels under the coffee table'."

I should note that I haven't watched Discovery